Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (HOLLAND HOUSE) BILL

Read the Third time, and passed.

ESSEX COUNTY COUNCIL BILL (By Order)

Second Reading deferred till Wednesday next.

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

Return ordered,
containing an Epitome of the Reports from the Committees of Public Accounts, 1938 to 1950, and of the Treasury Minutes thereon, with an Index for the period 1857 to 1950."—[Mr. J. Edwards.]

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE

Hearing Aids

Mr. Leslie Hale: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the long waiting list for hearing aids; and whether he will exempt from liability to make any payment for hearing aids all those people who have made applications and are still awaiting their supply.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Harry Crookshank): As I mentioned on Second Reading of the National Health Service Bill, it is not proposed to charge for hearing aids.

Mr. Hale: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. He will be aware, of course, that the Question was put down before the Second Reading of the Bill, and we are grateful for even that little concession.

Mr. Hale: asked the Minister of Health the average period of time which now elapses or is expected to elapse between an application for a Medresco hearing aid and its being supplied.

Mr. Crookshank: The waiting period varies according to the patient's priority and local circumstances, and an average figure is not calculable.

Mr. Hale: But is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in Manchester, in spite of the fact that there is a devoted organisation which is extremely helpful about every case I send, there is a long delay—in many cases much more than 12 months—and can he do something about that and also tell us what is happening about the induction hearing aids?

Mr. Crookshank: Questions dealing with Manchester ought to be on the Paper. Obviously I cannot carry in my mind what happens in every city in the country. It is quite true that there is considerable delay and there are further Questions about it on the Order Paper today.

Mr. A. Woodburn: Could the right hon. Gentleman say whether many inroads are being made into the waiting list, or is it still keeping to its high figure?

Mr. Crookshank: If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the Order Paper, he will see that this also is coming up later.

Colonel Sir Leonard Ropner: Can my right hon. Friend say whether he is giving further thought to the possibility of financial aid to deaf people so that they can buy alternative makes of hearing aids?

Mr. Crookshank: That again is to be answered today.

Mr. Peter Freeman: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that there is about two years' delay in the supply of National Health Service hearing aids; that hearing aids at a cost of £41 are immediately available; and if he will take steps to regulate the production and distribution of all hearing aids.

Mr. Crookshank: I know that there is still considerable delay in supplying patients with aids under the National Health Service, but the rate of distribution of Medresco aids has been steadily


increasing and is now higher than ever before. The answer to the last part of the Question is, "No, Sir."

Mr. Freeman: Arising from this, may I ask a question concerning a business woman who purchased one of these hearing aids two years ago at a cost of £10—she was not able to get one free—and who now finds that she is unable to get any batteries for it and is only offered one of these £41 aids, which is the only alternative choice? She cannot wait two years for a further hearing aid. What steps can she take if she cannot afford £41?

Mr. Crookshank: That does not seem to arise out of the Question. The hon. Member has quoted a particular case, and I must ask notice of it.

Mr. Freeman: Did I not send the Minister details of this case only within the last week or two and ask him for information about it?

Mr. F. J. Erroll: Could not the individual concerned go to another firm and get another type of hearing aid?

Mr. E. Fernyhough: asked the Minister of Health the number of outstanding applications for hearing aids at the time that the National Health Service Bill was presented to the House.

Mr. Crookshank: About 94,000.

Mr. Fernyhough: Now that the Minister has seen fit, due to great public agitation, to withdraw the mean charges to which these victims were subjected, will he also withdraw the other mean charges which we are to discuss on the Bill this afternoon?

Mr. J. J. Astor: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that Mrs. Brunsdon, of 54 Brynmon Park, Compton, Plymouth, who has been on the waiting list for a hearing aid since August, 1950, at the South Devon and East Cornwall Hospital, informed the hospital on 22nd January, 1952, that her husband had had a severe stroke, and that she was unable to communicate with him; that the hospital ignored her repeated applications; and if he will ensure that, in future hospitals give consideration to cases of this sort.

Mr. Crookshank: I have made inquiries, and regret the delay which I understand occurred following Mr. Brunsdon's illness. I must, however, rely on hospitals to use their own discretion in giving priority, and they do usually take into account exceptional circumstances of this kind.

Mr. Astor: Is the Minister aware that in fact Mrs. Brunsdon lost her husband and was unable to communicate with him before his death, that she had warned the hospital that this might happen and that the hospital in March gave her the explanation that she has no longer a priority, presumably because she has no one to speak to as she is living alone? Will my right hon. Friend ensure that those in this hospital concerned with similar cases are not only more efficient, but treat similar cases with more consideration and understanding?

Mr. Crookshank: Of course, if those were the facts I would entirely agree with my hon. Friend, but I have a different version of the facts. I am informed that although Mr. Brunsdon has died, his widow has not lost her priority but that she is going to be fitted within the next two or three weeks.

Mr. Astor: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the last communication the hospital made to this lady was exactly opposite to what he has stated?

Mr. Speaker: There seems to be a conflict of evidence here which cannot be straightened out during Question time.

S.W. Metropolitan Area Hospitals (Food Costs)

Mr. Norman Dodds: asked the Minister of Health if the detailed investigation into the costs of feeding patients in hospitals under the control of the South-West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board have yet been completed and with what result.

Mr. Crookshank: No, Sir. The investigations are still proceeding.

Mr. Dodds: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that it is six weeks since he said that there was to be an investigation into the formidable cost of provisioning? Does he not think that is an undue length of time in view of the rapidly increasing prices?

Mr. Crookshank: No, we want a thorough investigation and shall have to analyse the results when we get them.

Medical Record Cards

Mr. Hale: asked the Minister of Health what powers exist under his regulations to obtain the deletion from the patient's record card of a libellous statement.

Mr. Crookshank: I think this is scarcely a matter to be dealt with by regulation. Perhaps the hon. Member might like to send me particulars of any case he has in mind.

Old Peoples' Hostels (Spending Money)

Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton: asked the Minister of Health whether he will now increase the weekly pocket-money of 5s., as laid down in his regulations, retained out of their old age pensions by residents in old peoples' homes.

Mr. R. J. Mellish: asked the Minister of Health if he will introduce regulations to enable local authorities to increase the amount of spending money to old people in hostels under their control.

Mr. Crookshank: This matter will need to be considered in connection with the proposals now being worked out for increasing rates of retirement pensions and other National Insurance benefits.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Would the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that, whenever the pension rate is increased, some part of the increase will be added to the meagre pocket-money of these old people? Is he further aware that these people have a claim to our sympathy at least equal to that of Surtax payers, who will get their benefit much more promptly than will old people?

Tuberculosis (Treatment)

Mr. Percy Shurmer: asked the Minister of Health in view of the fact that some 8,000 persons in the United Kingdom suffering from tuberculosis are awaiting admission to sanatoria, if he will consider sending some of these cases to sanatoria in Switzerland where there are many vacant beds and where the cost per bed compares favourably with the cost in this country.

Mr. Crookshank: One hundred and thirty sanatorium beds in Switzerland are already being used in this way, and I am not satisfied that it would be justifiable to increase this number in present circumstances.

Mr. Shurmer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that owing to the long waiting lists, the time between diagnosis and admission is up to nine months throughout the country, and that even in Birmingham, where we pride ourselves on being well advanced in the treatment of tuberculosis, there is a three months waiting list? Surely, with beds empty in Switzerland, it would cost no more to this country to send people there?

Mr. Crookshank: I think the hon. Gentleman is a little pessimistic. The bed situation is nothing like as bad as he suggests. As a matter of fact it has sometimes been found that, by the time a person has been selected and made ready to go to Switzerland, a bed is available in this country.

Mr. Gerald Williams: If the Minister thinks it an economic proposition to send 130, could he not try to send 1,030? In the long run, the saving made by stopping infection spreading throughout the country would represent an enormous economic advantage?

Mr. Shurmer: I hope that the Minister will be prepared to make inquiries into his own statement, because the chief T.B. officer for Birmingham has stated recently that the waiting period is three months in Birmingham, and up to nine months in the rest of the country.

Rev. Llywelyn Williams: asked the Minister of Health how many tuberculosis patients awaiting admission to sanatoria have been on those lists for more than 12 months in Monmouthshire and in Wales, respectively.

Mr. Crookshank: For sanatoria and tuberculosis hospitals, the figures are 27 in Monmouthshire and 125 in Wales, excluding Monmouthshire.

Rev. Ll. Williams: asked the Minister of Health how many people suffering from tuberculosis are on the waiting list for admission to sanatoria in Monmouthshire and in Wales, respectively.

Mr. Crookshank: The number waiting for admission to sanatoria and tuberculosis hospitals on 29th March was 182 in Monmouthshire and 759 in Wales, excluding Monmouthshire.

Mr. George Thomas: Can the Minister give any idea as to when he will be able to reduce this list, which I believe is growing monthly?

Mr. Crookshank: I have given the House the trend of the figures. I should like to see a Question on the Paper about the point raised by the hon. Member, which I cannot answer offhand.

Mentally Defective Children

Mr. William Shepherd: asked the Minister of Health how many mentally defective children are waiting admission to homes; and if he will state the average length of time which these children have been waiting for such admission.

Mr. Crookshank: Statistics of children now awaiting admission to mental deficiency institutions will be available in a few weeks' time, and I will send my hon. Friend the information. I regret that figures are not available as to the average length of time on the waiting lists.

Mr. Shepherd: Will my right hon. Friend accept my assurance that there are many cases within my personal knowledge where the waiting time is up to four years?

Mr. Crookshank: I must admit that this is one of the most pressing and difficult problems of all those I have to study.

Mrs. E. M. Braddock: When the Minister is compiling his figures, will he give details of the length of time and the severity of the cases waiting for admission? Is he aware that there are many cases that have no right to be at home at all, that they are a danger to people in the home and a trouble to their parents, and that they have been waiting for as long as 18 months for admission to these homes?

Mr. Shepherd: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware of the disruption in home life caused by mentally defective children; and what steps he is taking to increase the institutional facilities.

Mr. Crookshank: Yes, Sir, and I am reviewing proposals of the regional hospital boards to increase institutional accommodation.

Mr. Shepherd: Will my right hon. Friend, if he has not had personal experience of what happens in these cases, try to obtain it so that he can appreciate to the full the distress which this kind of mental child causes in the home?

Mr. Donald Chapman: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what pressure he is putting on the regional hospital boards in this matter, because some of them do not feel that they can advance as quickly as they would like to do?

Mr. Wilfred Paling: asked the Minister of Health the number of mentally defective children in the Sheffield Regional Hospital Board area requiring institutional accommodation.

Mr. Crookshank: Up-to-date figures will shortly be available, and I will send the information to the right hon. Member.

Mr. Paling: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is reported that there is a hold-up in regard to children in this area needing this treatment? Is he aware that a great many have been waiting for years and years, and will he do what he can to help the Hospital Board to provide the accommodation so badly needed?

Mr. Crookshank: I have already referred to that this afternoon.

Mr. W. R. Williams: In view of the number of inquiries in Questions put to the Minister this afternoon, will he realise that this is a very urgent matter—a very serious matter—because, whatever the situation in Sheffield, I am given to understand on good authority that the position in Manchester is possibly still more serious?

Mr. Crookshank: Perhaps the hon. Member was not present, but I have already said this afternoon that I view this situation with grave concern.

Mr. Williams: I was present, but I could not get in.

Hospitals (Meals Charge)

Dr. Reginald Bennett: asked the Minister of Health whether he will consider imposing charges for meals taken at


hospitals by members of management committees and regional hospital boards on a similar basis to the charges levied on doctors and other staff.

Mr. Crookshank: No, Sir, but I would expect members taking meals at hospitals either to pay for them or refrain from claiming the normal subsistence allowances.

Mr. Mellish: Is the Minister aware that, as a member of a regional hospital board, whenever I have a meal at a hospital I have to pay for it?

Nursing Reserve (Pay)

Mr. Peter Remnant: asked the Minister of Health what rate of pay is granted to a member of the N.H.S. Reserve during the annual 48-hour refresher course.

Mr. Crookshank: Trained nurses are paid at the rates appropriate to their grades under Whitley Council agreements. Nursing auxiliaries are paid 1s. 10d. an hour for part-time service and receive free meals on duty. If employed full-time they are paid the appropriate proportion of a full-time salary of £225 a year, assuming they have had no previous full-time service as a nursing auxiliary.

Mr. Remnant: Would my right hon. Friend agree that 2s. 9d. an hour is about the average rate for refresher courses, and since it is, if anything, a little below the rate earned by charwomen, does he think that it is adequate?

Mr. Crookshank: All I can say is that the National Hospital Service Reserve is the only one of the Civil Defence services which pays its members for refresher courses.

Mr. Remnant: That is not the point.

Hospital Pay-Beds

Mr. Remnant: asked the Minister of Health what proportion of hospital pay-beds are normally occupied.

Mr. Crookshank: Complete information is not available, but I understand that the proportion of these beds occupied by paying patients varies so greatly in different hospitals that no average figure would have any value.

Mr. Remnant: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that the regulations of his Department which demand that the charges should cover the entire costs of these beds are such that a great many people cannot afford to use them? Will he consider allowing off the total charge their normal cost in the ward?

Mr. Crookshank: I should like to see that question on the Paper.

Mr. R. Ewart: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it would be more in the nature of a comprehensive National Health Service if the pay-bed system were entirely abolished?

Mr. Crookshank: That was not the view of the previous Government; nor is it mine.

Leeds Hospital Board Car (Use)

Colonel Malcolm Stoddart-Scott: asked the Minister of Health if the use of the Leeds Regional Hospital Board's car for other than hospital board work has now ceased; what views were expressed by the auditors upon this irregular use; and what surcharge has been made upon the member of this hospital board who so used the car.

Mr. Crookshank: The auditor drew attention in a report dated 8th March, 1951, to the use of the car for purposes other than National Health Service duties and expressed the view that the cost of these journeys was not a proper charge on Exchequer funds. This use of the car has now ceased. There is no power of surcharge in circumstances of this kind.

Colonel Stoddart-Scott: Will my right hon. Friend point out to this Regional Hospital Board that money spent extravagantly and illegally like this means less money for spending on the treatment, cure and prevention of disease?

Cancer Treatment (Mr. Rees Evans)

Mr. Peter Freeman: asked the Minister of Health whether inquiries into the claims of Mr. Rees Evans for curing cancer have now been concluded; and when a report may be expected, in view of the long delay that has already occurred.

Mr. Crookshank: Yes, Sir. I am considering the committee's report, but I am not yet ready to make a statement.

Mr. Freeman: Will the report be published when the right hon. Gentleman has studied it?

Mr. Crookshank: I could not say today.

Dermatitis (Soap Substitutes)

Sir Leslie Plummer: asked the Minister of Health what significant increases there have been in the incidence of dermatitis traceable to the use of branded detergents and soap substitutes.

Mr. Crookshank: I have no information of any significant increases of this kind.

Dr. Bennett: Are any measures in prospect for establishing standards of detergents and other of these cleansing agents?

Mr. Crookshank: I should like to see that question on the Paper. I do not even know whether it is my responsibility or that of one of my colleagues.

Prescriptions

Dr. A. D. D. Broughton: asked the Minister of Health the average cost of a National Health Service prescription in each of the five years, 1948 to 1952.

Mr. Crookshank: The approximate average cost in England and Wales in the second half of 1948 was 2s. 8½d. In the years 1949 and 1950, it was 3s. and 3s. 2½d., respectively. Complete figures for 1951 are not yet available, but the average cost is estimated to be 3s. 8d. No figures are available for 1952.

Dr. Broughton: asked the Minister of Health how many National Health Service prescriptions were dispensed in the month of January in the years 1949, 1950, 1951 and 1952, respectively.

Mr. Crookshank: The figures for England and Wales are 18,343,000; 19,892,000; 28,917,000 and 20,799,000, respectively.

Doctors' Patients (Hospital Beds)

Dr. Broughton: asked the Minister of Health how many hospitals beds are available for general medical practitioners to look after their own patients

not requiring specialist treatment; and to what extent this number has increased since the end of last year.

Mr. Crookshank: The returns from hospital authorities show 6,982 beds at 31st December, 1951. I regret that I have no later figure than this.

Dr. Broughton: Is the Minister aware that in the statement of Tory policy issued by the Conservative Party and published for the General Election of October, 1951, these words appear on page 30:
The general practitioner should be able to take part in hospital work. Beds should be made available where he can look after those of his patients not requiring specialist treatment.
Can the right hon. Gentleman now confirm that Tory election promise and give an assurance that the Government will honour it?

Mr. Crookshank: I have already made statements on that subject before.

Hon. Members: Answer.

Dr. Broughton: In view of the thoroughly unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible opportunity.

Dental Decay (Fluorine)

Mr. W. W. Astor: asked the Minister of Health whether he will study the diminution of dental decay achieved in certain American cities by the addition of fluorine to the drinking water supplies; and whether he will encourage similar measures in this country.

Mr. C. J. M. Alport: asked the Minister of Health what consideration has been given to the advisability of administering fluorine in public water supplies with the object of preventing dental caries in this country.

Mr. Crookshank: A scientific mission is at present in the United States studying this matter on behalf of Her Majesty's Government. The question whether similar measures should be taken in this country will be considered in the light of the mission's report.

Dr. Barnett Stross: Is the Minister aware that there are traces of fluorine in the wheat berry, if it is not spoiled by taking out the inner and outer husks?


Will he use his influence with the Ministry of Food to give us a more satisfactory type of bread and then we shall not need fluorine in the drinking water?

Mr. Alport: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the suggestion of the medical profession that this would prevent the increase of decay amongst children's teeth was made in 1892? Does not my right hon. Friend think it is time we made some progress in this matter?

Mr. Crookshank: There is progress, in that since I have been in office a mission has been sent to the United States.

Mr. Astor: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I made the suggestion to his predecessor in 1944 and, in view of this delay and of the great shortage of dental surgeons, will he see that there are no more experiments but that we use the experience gained in other countries?

Aged Persons, Stoke

Mr. A. Edward Davies: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware of the inadequacy of the residential accommodation for aged persons in need of care and attention in Stoke-on-Trent; and whether he will help the local authority to extend its present limited facilities and to carry out the provisions of the National Assistance Act, 1948.

Mr. Crookshank: I am aware that here, as in other places, there is a shortage of such accommodation. As soon as building resources allow, I will do all I can to help the provision of additional accommodation by the local authority.

Mr. Davies: As this application has been turned down on the grounds of shortage of steel, and as there is some hope of getting increased supplies towards the latter part of this year, may we expect a favourable reply when those supplies come to hand?

Mr. Crookshank: We shall have to see what happens then, but at present the allocation of steel for purposes of this kind is almost wholly for maintenance work.

Dr. Stross: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind one important point, that if accommodation is not found for these aged and sick folk in this way they tend to find their way into local hospitals, which is very much more expensive and is the responsibility of the Minister?

Mr. Edward Davies: asked the Minister of Health to what extent the shortage of steel is holding up work designed to provide extra accommodation for aged and sick persons, as required under the National Assistance Act, 1948.

Mr. Crookshank: The shortage of steel has had the inevitable effect of delaying work on a considerable number of schemes for providing accommodation under the National Assistance Acts.

Mr. Davies: Will the Minister satisfy himself that some other arrangement cannot be made in the case I cited about Stoke? It is only a modest amount of steel required to reinforce the concrete bases owing to mining subsidence—does the right hon. Gentleman understand the position?

Mr. Crookshank: Yes, but I am afraid the steel is just not available for this purpose now, and no one regrets it more than I do.

Mr. A. Blenkinsop: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the amount of steel required is very small both for the structure and also for radiators and things of that sort, and that it will be very much less than if he has to provide accommodation for old people elsewhere?

Ineducable Children

Mr. H. Hynd: asked the Minister of Health how many children, whose health renders them unfit for normal education, are awaiting admission to hospitals or other institutions where they can get special treatment and education.

Mr. Crookshank: I regret that the information is not available.

Mr. Hynd: Although he may not have specific figures, is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the seriousness of the problem, and can he say where the obstacles lie? Is it with his Department with the Treasury, with the regional hospital board, or in labour and materials?

Brigadier Christopher Peto: Is it not a fact that the difficulty lies in insufficient accommodation, and is it not time that more buildings were put up to accommodate people?

Mr. Crookshank: I am quite aware how grievous the position is, but all the Question asked was for a figure, which is not available.

General Practitioners

Dr. Horace King: asked the Minister of Health the number of general practitioners in Great Britain who are receiving payments from the National Health Service.

Mr. Crookshank: At the 1st January, 1952, the number of general practitioners in Great Britain receiving payment from the National Health Service was 20,859.

Dr. King: Is the Minister aware that his answer means that the Danckwerts Award proposes to increase the income of doctors by £10 per week with £30 a week back money?

Dr. King: asked the Minister of Health what sum of money was paid in 1951, under the National Health Service, to general practitioners in Great Britain.

Mr. Crookshank: Figures for the calendar year are not available, but for the year ending 31st March, 1951, the total amount payable to general medical practitioners in Great Britain for work done under the National Health Service is estimated to have been £51,644,000.

Dr. King: Is the Minister aware that his answer indicates that the average income of the general practitioner from the National Health Service is £50 per week and, while nobody would object to making up the money received by rural doctors and those with small lists, there seems no justification for the amount proposed under the Danckwerts Award?

Mr. H. A. Marquand: asked the Minister of Health (1) whether the negotiations on the redistribution of the central pool from which Health Service general practitioners are remunerated are actively proceeding; and how soon he expects them to be concluded;
(2) whether he will give an assurance that no additional payments into the general practitioners' central pool will be made, following the recent adjudication, unless or until full agreement has been reached upon redistribution and other matters referred to a Working Party.

Mr. Crookshank: The acceptance of the adjudicator's award was conditional on an agreement satisfactory to both sides being reached on a revised plan of distributing the central pool. Discussions

are proceeding to produce a plan of distribution, but I cannot say when they will be concluded.

Mr. Marquand: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his reply will help to clear up some misunderstanding which appears to exist, because it was part of the agreement which does not seem to have been generally understood that there should be this review of distribution as well as this adjudication on the size of the central pool, and that the two are quite inseparable?

Hospital Admissions

Mr. Alport: asked the Minister of Health the average waiting time for patients needing hospital treatment at the latest available date.

Mr. Crookshank: The waiting time varies widely according to the nature of the case, and no useful average figures are therefore available.

Maternity Hospital Beds

Sir Harold Roper: asked the Minister of Health whether he will consider amending the rules governing the allocation of hospital beds for maternity cases in order that women who are unable to obtain home helps may be permitted to go to hospital for the birth of their children.

Mr. Crookshank: Hospital authorities have already been advised that adverse social conditions, which include lack of help at home, justify priority, next after medical need, for admission in hospital maternity beds.

Sir H. Roper: Will the Minister include in that the particular case of Mrs. Cotton, of Bridge Farm, North Hill, and say why that principle has not been applied in her case?

Mr. Crookshank: I am afraid I have not heard of that particular case, but if my hon. Friend will let me have details I will look into it.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE

Sheep-Worrying

Major Tufton Beamish: asked the Minister of Agriculture what further talks he has now had on the question of sheep-worrying by dogs; and what new proposals he has to try to secure better control of dogs in the countryside and to


ensure that the existing law is more strictly enforced and, if possible, improved.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent): My right hon. and gallant Friend has had talks with the representatives of the animal welfare societies concerned. The conclusions will be announced as soon as possible.

Major Beamish: Is the Minister aware that while there is obviously no easy solution to this problem, there is very little understanding by the general public of the great damage which has been done? In 1951 nearly 11,000 sheep were killed or injured by stray dogs, and the figures are going up steadily year by year. Will the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that his right hon. Friend will look at this matter with the greatest sympathy to see what can be done?

Mr. Nugent: My right hon. and gallant Friend is well aware of the gravity of the problem. That is why he is taking this step, and he hopes to get some useful result.

Sir Herbert Williams: Why is it that this problem has developed so recently? It did not exist to such a serious extent before the war.

Hon. Members: Shortage of meat.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Is my hon. Friend aware that some farmers are being driven out of sheep rearing by the gravity of this menace from dogs, and does he realise that this situation is a real threat to food production?

Starlings (Damage)

Sir H. Williams: asked the Minister of Agriculture if he will consider the appointment of a committee to examine the problem of starlings, with a view to suitable steps being taken to reduce the damage done by these birds.

Mr. Nugent: A number of my right hon. and gallant Friend's colleagues are also concerned with this complex problem, and he will consult them and the Nature Conservancy about the most suitable procedure for examining it further.

Mr. Bell: Is not it a fact that many of the outbreaks of foot and mouth disease recently reported have been caused by migrant starlings?

Mr. Nugent: That is probably so.

Pigswill

Mr. R. Bell: asked the Minister of Agriculture if he will reconsider his Department's request made to certain other Departments to effect the termination of their contracts for collection of pigswill by farmers licensed as processors since before 1945.

Mr. Nugent: No, Sir. In the interests of animal health, swill from canteens and messes controlled by Government Departments is, whenever possible, centrally sterilised before being taken on to farms; and the results justify a continuation of this arrangement.

Mr. R. Bell: Instead of concentrating on animal swill, will my hon. Friend concentrate on starlings, and does he realise that great hardship is being caused to individual pig breeders by this recent withdrawal of their basic supplies?

Mr. Nugent: I cannot accept that great hardship is being caused. Where a contract for the collection of swill is cut down, or the swill goes to a central processing plant, arrangements are made for the previous collector to get an equivalent quantity of processed swill.

Foot-and-Mouth Disease

Col. J. H. Harrison: asked the Minister of Agriculture on how many farm premises there has been more than one outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease during the last 12 months.

Mr. Nugent: Three, Sir.

Col. Harrison: Is my hon. Friend satisfied that the interval of six weeks before the farmer can restock is long enough without risk of infection of neighbouring farms?

Mr. Nugent: Yes, Sir. My right hon. Friend is satisfied that the period is long enough. The probability is that these secondary outbreaks have occurred through migrant birds.

Mr. W. F. Deedes: asked the Minister of Agriculture what international machinery exists for discussion and implementing joint action here and on the Continent to combat foot and mouth disease.

Mr. Nugent: The International Office of Epizootics, the Organisation for


European Economic Co-operation and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations are collaborating in this matter.

Mr. Deedes: Can my hon. Friend say how actively they are collaborating on this matter, in view of the fact that many areas in the south of England, and particularly in south-east England nearest to the Continent, are obviously suffering, either through migrating birds or imported straw, from the results of what is now raging on the Continent, and will he have another look at the veterinary arrangements?

Mr. Nugent: We are not in control of the veterinary arrangements in Europe. We are making our contribution through these bodies to bring this epidemic under control. More than that we cannot do.

Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: Are these international organisations being given the funds they require to deal with these matters on an adequate scale?

Mr. Nugent: We are making our proper contribution, and, indeed, we may take credit for our Chief Veterinary Officer, Sir Thomas Dalling, having been appointed as Chief Veterinary Consultant of the F.A.O.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Is there any scientific evidence that migrating birds are responsible for this disease? Surely there is a great danger of hysterical and hypothetical theories being formulated and blaming everything on an innocent party?

Mr. Nugent: I think the probability is that migrating birds are responsible.

Dispossession and Supervision Orders, Kent

Mr. Percy Wells: asked the Minister of Agriculture the number of farmers under supervision in the county of Kent at the nearest convenient date; and the number who have been dispossessed since the operation of the Agriculture Act, 1927.

Mr. Nugent: On 29th February last 64 farmers in Kent were under supervision for husbandry and three others had been, or were being, dispossessed.

Mr. Wells: Can the Minister say how many of these farmers have been under supervision previously?

Mr. Nugent: That is another question. If the hon. Member will put it on the Order Paper, I will give him details.

Statistical Returns (Cost)

Mr. Robert Crouch: asked the Minister of Agriculture the full cost of collecting quarterly agricultural returns; and what was the cost of 4th June returns in 1938.

Mr. Nugent: A large part of this work is carried out, as it was in 1938, by staff who are mainly employed on other duties. I regret therefore that estimates of the cost of collection are not available.

Mr. Crouch: Does not my hon. Friend consider that the time has arrived when quarterly returns are unnecessary and that half-yearly returns would provide him with all the information he requires?

Mr. Nugent: No, Sir. In the opinion of my right hon. and gallant Friend, the collection of quarterly returns is essential for the carrying out of our present farming policy.

Mr. Crouch: May I ask how many returns are still outstanding eight weeks after Quarter Day has passed?

Mr. Nugent: That is another question, and if my hon. Friend will put it on the Order Paper I will give him an answer.

Mr. Crouch: asked the Minister of Agriculture the number employed by the statistical branch of his Department; and what was the number employed in the same branch in 1938.

Mr. Nugent: There are 265 staff employed full-time in my right hon. and gallant Friend's Department on agricultural statistics, and 350 county staff employed for a small part of their time. In 1938 the number of staff employed full-time on such work was 51; there were also about 220 clerks employed for a few months each year and 305 part-time crop reporters.

Mr. Crouch: May I ask if that includes staff employed down to district offices below county level?

Mr. Nugent: That includes the whole staff employed.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Does that answer mean that none of the returns required from agriculturists in the country are ever to be reduced?

Mr. Nugent: The only implication in that answer is that quarterly agricultural returns continue to be essential.

Mr. Thomas Williams: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that in the inter-war years statistical returns were of little or no value, since there was no consideration at all given to agriculture, and unless the statistics were made available it would be quite impossible for the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to carry out his policy?

Mr. Harmar Nicholls: If the system of quarterly returns were abandoned, could the figures of staff be reduced even below the figure before the war?

Mr. Nugent: I have already said that the collection of quarterly returns really is essential to carry out the present agricultural policy.

Grassland (Ploughing Up)

Mr. Anthony Hurd: asked the Minister of Agriculture how far the reports he is receiving from the county agricultural executive committees show that there is a satisfactory response to the Government's offer of £5 an acre grant on grassland ploughed and cropped for this year's harvest.

Mr. Nugent: My right hon. and gallant Friend has not called for detailed reports at this stage. Those reports he has had show a satisfactory response.

Farm Prices Review

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. HURD: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, if, in view of the delay again this year in concluding the February review of farm prices, he will consider the desirability of arranging in future years that this annual review follows the Budget, making the price schedule effective from 1st June instead of 1st April.

Mr. T. Williams: On a point of order. May I ask whether or not the word "again" in the first line of this Question would not give a misleading impression, since on no other occasion have we failed to complete the February review before 1st April?

Mr. Hurd: Further to that point of order, I think that if the right hon. Gentleman were to refresh his memory he would find that the Question is perfectly correctly framed.

Mr. Speaker: I must point out that hon. Gentlemen who put down Questions on the Order Paper are themselves responsible for the accuracy of the expressions which they use.

Mr. Nugent: My right hon. and gallant Friend has no occasion to think that the reasons for this year's delay are likely to occur again? He will be glad to consider my hon. Friend's proposal. There are, of course, good arguments for the present arrangements.

Mr. I. Mikardo: Would it not, in fact, be better to follow precisely the opposite procedure to that described in the Question, namely, to ensure that the review was completed before the Budget, so that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could take into account, in framing his economic policies, the future rise in the cost of food, instead of relying upon a bogus figure, as he had to do on this occasion?

Mr. Nugent: My right hon. and gallant Friend will take note of that.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: asked the Minister of Agriculture if he will give details of his discussions with the National Farmer's Union on the review of farm prices.

Mr. Nugent: Yes, Sir, in due course.

Mr. Lewis: Will the Parliamentary Secretary consult with his right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister and make the suggestion to him that, before he comes to any agreement, he should consider appointing an independent committee of inquiry, and, perhaps, including on that committee the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. S. N. Evans)?

Mr. Nugent: No, Sir.

Farm Building Scheme (Steel)

Commander J. F. W. Maitland: asked the Minister of Agriculture if he is satisfied with the progress of his Department's building scheme; how many such buildings were completed in 1949, 1950 and 1951; and what stocks of fabricated steel were held by his Department at the latest convenient date.

Mr. Nugent: I assume that my hon. and gallant Friend is referring to the scheme for the manufacture and distribution of standard components for farm buildings which was in operation from May, 1948, to June, 1950. During this period, enough standard components


were sold to construct the equivalent of 6,500 buildings each 60 ft. by 18 ft. The scheme enabled many farmers to obtain urgently needed buildings and has served a useful purpose.
The manufacture and distribution of the components was entirely in the hands of private firms, and at no time did the Department hold any stocks of fabricated steel for this purpose.

Commander Maitland: Will my hon. Friend tell me if this scheme is now completely stopped, or whether his Ministry has some scheme which is similar to it which is now working?

Mr. Nugent: When steel control was reimposed last February, the manufacture of M.A.F. building components could not continue unless an authorisation of steel was made for the purpose and, as there has been a continuing demand for these components, allocations of steel have, in fact, been made for them.

Domestic Poultry Keeping

Mr. George Brown: asked the Minister of Agriculture what progress has been made with the formation of a new domestic poultry keepers' organisation; and what assistance he proposes to afford it.

Mr. Nugent: Twenty-seven county federations of domestic poultry clubs have been set up and a preliminary meeting of delegates from county federations has been called for 3rd May to consider a constitution for the national organisation and plans for holding its first meeting.
The new organisation will receive financial assistance from the Government in the initial period of its development. Such assistance will be on a diminishing scale and the organisation will be expected to become self-supporting.

Mr. Brown: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that one very great form of assistance for this very desirable development would be to make some issue of balancer meal to members of the federations and of clubs? As we had 12½ million domestic hens during the war feeding something like 5 million people, will the hon. Gentleman not consider doing something of this kind?

Mr. Nugent: I am afraid I cannot hold out any hope to the right hon. Gentle-

man that there can be an increase of the existing ration for domestic purposes.

Mr. Brown: Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise that if we are to feed people better than they are now being fed, this is a valuable source of supply that makes small demands both on scarce currency and imported feedingstuffs?

Mr. Nugent: I do indeed, but the food ration for domestic poultry keepers could only be provided by subtracting it from that given to commercial poultry keepers, and at the present time that is not in the general interest.

LANCASHIRE RIVER BOARD (BLACKPOOL PRECEPT)

Mr. Roland Robinson: asked the Minister of Agriculture if he is aware that the contribution of Blackpool Corporation to the expenses of the newly-established Lancashire River Board for the year ended 31st March, 1952, is £20,830 as against the average annual contribution previously of £2,233 for the old Lancashire Rivers Board and the River Wyre Catchment Board; and whether, as a corporation such as Blackpool derives small benefit from the increased expenditure, he will, at an early date, review the arrangements under which the expenditure of river boards is collected from local authorities.

Mr. Nugent: My right hon. Friend is aware of this increase. It arises largely from the fact that only part of the town was included in the previous Catchment Area whereas it is wholly included in the present River Board Area. This is in accordance with the River Boards Act, 1948, which also lays down the arrangements under which the expenses of river boards are met. My right hon. Friends the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Housing and Local Government see no reason to review these arrangements which have been so recently approved by Parliament.

Mr. Robinson: Is my hon. Friend aware that in many cases this Act has had the effect of placing the main burden of costs on those who are least concerned?

Mr. T. Williams: Is the hon. Gentleman also aware that if wealthy Blackpool paid less, more unfortunate authorities would have to pay more?

Mr. Kenneth Thompson: May I ask if my hon. Friend is aware that precisely similar conditions apply in the not very wealthy City of Liverpool, where the proportion of the increased precept is almost exactly the same, without any compensating advantage?

Mr. R. Robinson: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will provide figures showing how the total annual expenditure for all river boards in the country for the financial year ended 31st March, 1952, compares with the average total expenditure on river work by other responsible organisations during the five years preceding April, 1952, when the new river board machinery came into operation; and what steps are being taken to curtail unnecessary and extravagant expenditure by river boards in the light of the new economic circumstances of the country.

Mr. Nugent: I am afraid that it is not possible to provide such comparative information. River boards have important functions to perform and my right hon. and gallant Friend has no reason to think that they are incurring unnecessary or extravagant expenditure.

TRAWLERS (BUILDING RESTRICTION AGREEMENT)

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Agriculture (1) if he will give consideration to the Distant Water Vessels Scheme Agreement and take the necessary action to protect the consumers' interests;
(2) if he is aware of the concern at that part of the Distant Water Vessels Scheme Agreement which includes a penalty of £25,000 for breaking an agreement by firms engaged in the fishing industry building new trawlers or expanding their fleets in any way; and, in view of the undesirability of restrictive practices, if he will state what consultation took place with the White Fish Authority before the scheme was put into effect.

Mr. Nugent: The agreement to which the hon. Member refers does not prohibit new building by subscribing owners, but confines it to the replacement of old vessels. It is designed to prevent production of distant water fish from seriously outrunning consumer demand, with resulting slumps and distress, such as occurred in 1950. The White Fish

Authority were not in existence when the agreement was drawn up, but have, I understand, since been informed of its contents. As regards those parts of the agreement which relate to catching. I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister of Food on 10th March to the hon. Members for Sedgefield (Mr. Slater) and Wallsend (Mr. McKay).

Mr. Dodds: Does the Minister deny that in one Clause the trawler owners have agreed that, in the event of a full catch, 20 per cent. will go to the salters at below cost price, and does he really think that skippers who depend upon commission on net earnings are really going to be encouraged to get that additional 20 per cent.? Is he aware that in the agreement there is a £25,000 fine for expanding their fleet, and can the Minister say if he thinks that half-a-dozen housewives are going to subscribe to get a trawler to catch this additional fish?

Mr. Nugent: To answer the second question first, since at the present time no fewer than 23 new trawlers are being built, evidently the penalty is not working in the way which the hon. Member expects.

Mr. Dodds: Does the Minister deny that it exists?

Mr. Nugent: I do not deny that it is there, but the object of building restriction is to prevent large-scale over-production of distant water fish for which there is no consumer demand. If we have a recurrence of the slump of 1950, the inevitable result will be bankruptcy, ships going out of commission, and eventually smaller supplies of fish for the market and at higher prices.

Mr. Dodds: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that he did not answer the first part of the question I asked him?

Mr. Nugent: I think the first part of the question was addressed to the restrictive clause, which requires that not more than 80 per cent. of the full catch may be landed. The explanation of that is that, in practice, its restrictive effect is virtually nil. It is very rare indeed for a 100 per cent. catch to be brought home, and it is virtually impossible to bring home a 100 per cent. catch in good condition. If an 80 per cent. catch is brought home, it is normally a very full catch.

Air Commodore A. V. Harvey: Is my hon. Friend aware that these difficulties could be overcome if the Icelandic trawlers brought fish home in the winter months, instead of the more plentiful times of the spring and summer; and will he point out to the hon. Gentleman opposite that the skippers are paid on gross earnings, not net earnings?

Mr. Hector Hughes: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the allegations made conflict with the powers given by this House to the White Fish Authority, and that that is a very serious matter? Will he look into it and consider issuing a White Paper?

Mr. Nugent: No, Sir. I have no doubt that if the White Fish Authority consider that there is a restrictive result from this agreement they will take proper action.

Mr. Dodds: In view of the very unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise this matter on the Motion for the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

British Press (Dollar Allocation)

Sir L. Plummer: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state the total amount of dollars that were in 1951 allotted to, and expended by, the national daily and Sunday newspapers and the London evening newspapers in membership of the Newspaper Proprietors' Association.

The Minister of State for Economic Affairs (Sir Arthur Salter): It would be contrary to established policy to disclose information about foreign currency allotted to individual applicants or groups of applicants.

Cash Sales Tax

Sir William Darling: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what would be the approximate yield of a 1 per cent. sales tax on all commodity transactions payable on actual cash receipts by seller.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): It is not possible to make a reliable estimate since so much depends on what is deemed to be a commodity transaction payable in cash. As I told my hon. Friend in my letter of 28th January, the best estimate I can make of the total national turnover of goods and services is in the order of

3 to 3½ times the size of the national income. One per cent. of this total turnover is £400 million.

Sir W. Darling: Will my hon. Friend not agree that a tax of this character, bringing in a similar amount to that brought in by Purchase Tax, would be more equitable, more easily borne and more easily distributed than the present Purchase Tax?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: That is another question.

Personal Income Levels

Mr. Douglas Jay: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what percentage of all incomes in the United Kingdom he estimates to be less than £2,000 a year.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: With the level of incomes ruling at present there are about 20¼ million people with incomes above the Income Tax exemption limit of £135. Of these about 98.7 per cent. have incomes below £2,000 a year.

Mr. Jay: As the Chancellor told us in the Budget debate that 25 per cent. of the Income Tax relief would go to incomes over £2,000 a year, and as apparently that will only go to 1 per cent. of the population, does not that show how inequitable was this relief? May I also ask the hon. Gentleman whether it is not implied in this figure that 99 per cent. of the benefit of the food subsidies must have gone to people earning under £2,000 a year, and that therefore all the talk of the benefit going to millionaires and Cabinet Ministers is complete nonsense?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The right hon. Gentleman no doubt will be aware that in the case of a man with £2,000 a year who is married and has one child the relief under the present proposals amounts to £59 per annum, as compared with £86 per annum which went to the same people under Sir Stafford Cripp's Budget of 1948 and £98 under the proposals of the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) in 1945. If, therefore, in the right hon. Gentleman's view these proposals are inequitable, it would clearly follow that those of his right hon. Friend were grossly inequitable.

Mr. Jay: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that no reduction in the food subsidies but an increase was made in 1948, and therefore his remarks have nothing to do with it?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: As the right hon. Gentleman put down the Question, he is no doubt aware that it did not relate to food subsidies but to Income Tax concessions.

Mr. Speaker: This is becoming a debate on a very wide subject.

Purchase Tax

Mr. Richard Wood: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has yet reached a satisfactory scheme which will protect the trader when Purchase Tax is reduced or removed.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am afraid not. The position remains as stated by my right hon. Friend in reply to a Question on 18th March by the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Proctor).

Mr. Wood: Has my hon. Friend reason to be pessimistic or optimistic about the result?

Mr. Ellis Smith: Ask the "Express."

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am always optimistic.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS

Holidays with Pay

Miss Irene Ward: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the estimated cost of the agreed second week's annual paid holiday to workers in Government industrial establishments; and if he will consult with employers and trades unions on the possibility of compulsory implementation throughout industry.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The claim for an additional week's paid holiday for Government industrial employees is still under discussion with the trade unions concerned. The other parts of the Question therefore do not arise.

Miss Ward: While welcoming the decision of my hon. Friend—[HON. MEMBERS: "What decision?"] Well, may I ask my hon. Friend whether, in view of the fact that the decision is under discussion and that it will involve repercussions when it is taken, he will also consider introducing equal pay in the Civil Service?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: All relevant considerations will be borne in mind.

Mr. A. J. Bottomley: Does that reply mean that the Government are contemplating giving two weeks' holiday with pay to all these employees this year?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that while negotiations are actually taking place with the trade unions, concerned, it would be somewhat inappropriate for me to comment on these details.

Injury Compensation

Miss Ward: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will now make a statement with regard to the payment of injury compensation to persons who, though not civil servants, are employed by the State in a civil capacity.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Under the Injury Warrant now in force, persons who are not civil servants but who are employed by the Government in a civil capacity, whether paid or not, are eligible for injury compensation on the same basis as civil servants.

Miss Ward: Is my hon. Friend aware that his Department very kindly sent me a letter stating that this very good decision had been taken by his Department quite recently after eight years of battle to win this right for these people, and that I am very grateful to him for having accepted this proposal?

REMPLOY FACTORY, NORWICH (DISCHARGES)

Mr. John Paton: asked the Minister of Labour what recent changes in policy have been made by Remploy Limited in their Norwich factory with regard to the duration of sick leave and to the continued employment of seriously disabled men.

The Minister of Labour (Sir Walter Monckton): There is no question here of paid sick leave. It is simply a question of how long Remploy Limited will keep on their books, with a view to reengagement, a man who is unfit to work. That is a matter entirely within the discretion of the Company who, I have ascertained, have made no major changes in policy.

Mr. Paton: If, in fact, there have been no changes in policy, is it not curious that within a very short time four men, each of them with several years' engagement in this factory, should have been discharged on a plea of low efficiency—low efficiency being, of course, the very reason why Remploy exists?
Is it only a coincidence that at the same time a new rule about sick leave is imposed by which a constituent of mine is informed in the second month of his sickness—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."]—that because he has been away two months he is going to be struck off the register? [HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."] Does the right hon. Gentleman think that that is conducive to the recovery of this sick, disabled man? Can I have an answer?

Sir W. Monckton: I am perfectly willing to answer the question about the four men who were discharged. I have inquired from Remploy Ltd. and I learn that four very seriously disabled workers from Norwich Remploy Factory were recently discharged. The factory medical officers advised the company that they were unfit for any work in the factory, but the discharge did not take place until the case of each man had been carefully reviewed by the principal medical officer and the executive director of the company. As to the question of leave, I believe there was at one time a reduction of the period during which people were kept on the books after they ceased to be employed from two months to one month, but the period has now been restored to two months.

Mr. Paton: Is it not a fact that Remploy exists to deal with seriously disabled men, and that these men have served the factory for several years in each instance? Why is it that only now all four of them are suddenly discovered to be less efficient than they have been formerly? Does that not mean a change in policy? May I have an answer?
In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I shall seek the earliest opportunity of raising this matter on the Adjournment.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. C. R. Attlee: May I ask the Leader of the House the business for next week?

The Minister of Health (Mr. Harry Crookshank): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 7TH APRIL—Second Reading: Finance Bill.
TUESDAY, 8TH APRIL—We shall resume the Committee stage of the National Health Service Bill.
I hope that by the end of Tuesday we shall have made good progress with the Committee stage of this Bill, and with good will and co-operation I think we may have dealt with all the important issues which arise on the early Clauses.
I recognise that a further day may be required, and accordingly leave open the question of Wednesday's business.
THURSDAY, 10TH APRIL—It is proposed to meet at 11 a.m. and Questions will be taken until 12 noon.

Adjournment for the Easter Recess.

During the week we hope to take the Motion to approve the Draft Fertilisers (United Kingdom) Scheme.

Mr. Attlee: In view of the Second Reading of the Finance Bill, could the Chancellor of the Exchequer make his statement about the gold reserves tomorrow? Also, could the right hon. Gentleman say when the Government propose to issue the Economic Survey for the year?

Mr. Crookshank: My right hon. Friend hopes to be able to make the statement tomorrow. I understand that the Economic White Paper will be available to hon. Members on Saturday. It will be presented tomorrow.

Mr. Hugh Gaitskell: Do I understand from the right hon. Gentleman that the Economic Survey is to be published tomorrow?

Mr. Crookshank: I understood that it was being presented tomorrow.

Mr. Douglas Jay: Is that a categorical undertaking from the right hon. Gentleman to give us the Economic Survey on Saturday?

Hon. Members: Answer.

Mr. Crookshank: I apologise to the House. I received a message—perhaps we are talking about a different paper—but the Economic Survey was the paper which I understood the right hon. Gentleman was asking about—

Mr. I. Mikardo: Sort it out.

Mr. Crookshank: The statement will be presented tomorrow. It will be available on Saturday, so that hon. Members will have it before the debate on Monday.

Mr. Gaitskell: I am glad that is to be the case. That being so, could I ask when the White Paper on the balance of payments will be made available?

Mr. Crookshank: I apologise to the House. This matter has only been put to me within the last two minutes and it is a little difficult to sort out which it is. [An HON. MEMBER: "Unimportant."] It is not unimportant, but there are two documents under consideration. The statement about the gold reserves is to be made tomorrow. I had not appreciated that there was any White Paper in connection with it, but if the right hon. Gentleman understands there is to be one, and has asked for it, that is another matter. The other paper which was in my mind was the Economic Survey. Perhaps there is some last minute hitch about it; I do not know. I had understood that was to be available on Saturday morning.

Hon. Members: Muddle.

Mr. Gaitskell: Could we, then, have, later today, or at any rate tomorrow morning, a clear statement as to what White Papers are to be available. Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that at this time of year, at the beginning of April, it is customary to issue both the balance of White Paper—[Laughter]—I am sorry, the balance of payments White Paper. I am afraid, Mr. Speaker, that sometimes there is an infection of muddle across the Table. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he does not agree that we really ought to have at this time of year, as we usually do, both the White Paper on the balance of payments, covering the last six months of the previous year, and also the Economic Survey?

Mr. Crookshank: I think I have it clear. I apologise most sincerely if I

inadvertently misled anybody. It is the balance of payments White Paper which is to be presented tomorrow and will be available on Monday, but the Chancellor will be making a statement tomorrow. I will report to my right hon. Friend the right hon. Gentleman's view as to the desirability of the early publication of the other White Paper, but that is not the one for tomorrow.

Mr. Jay: Is it not very unsatisfactory to have not merely the Budget debate, but the Second Reading of the Finance Bill, without the Economic Survey? Is this confusion between the Leader of the House and the Financial Secretary due to more disagreements within the Government, or just to general muddle?

Mr. Crookshank: No, Sir, but the right hon. Gentleman will realise that the Budget was brought forward this year to an unexpectedly early date—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why? "]—which, obviously, affected the publication of the Survey in view of the figures in it.

Mr. Herbert Morrison: It has been customary for some years now for there to be Economic White Paper. [An HON. MEMBER: "Your invention."] I agree, and a very good invention, too. It has been customary for it to be issued in connection with the Budget. Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether or not there is any doubt as to the continuance of the Economic Survey, and whether we are to have one at all? I gather from him that it is not too clear, but I hope he can assure us that an Economic Survey is coming at an early date.

Mr. Crookshank: The reason there is a change in the dates, as the right hon. Gentleman apparently still does not follow, is that the Budget was brought forward. Therefore, documents which were made available last year and the year before and the year before that in time for the Finance Bill could not possibly be available in the same way now. For example, two years ago the Finance Bill was not taken until the middle of May. The figures which referred to the full year and were, therefore, under discussion, in so far as they were relevant in the Finance Bill, were then available, but they could not possibly be available by the first week in April. That is the difficulty.

Mr. Ralph Assheton: In view of the fact that the Economic Surveys of recent years have contained so many misleading statements, and have proved, in the event, to be so inaccurate in their prophesies, might we not get along better with the debate on Monday if we did not have one?

Mr. H. Morrison: The right hon. Gentleman need not worry—we shall not get it for Monday. Is it not the case that this Survey has usually been published before the Budget—I appreciate the change in the Budget date—but at any rate by the last week in March or the first week in April? I should still like to know from the right hon. Gentleman whether we are to get it or whether he is surrendering to the anarchist philosophy which comes from the other side?

Mr. Aneurin Bevan: In view of the fact that the Government have such limited time for extremely urgent business, would it not be desirable to postpone the passage of the National Health Service Bill? There is no general anxiety to proceed with the Bill.

Mr. Crookshank: We are proceeding with that this afternoon.

Mr. Bevan: Does the right hon. Gentleman hope, then, that he will have accommodation over the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill?

Mr. Niall Macpherson: May I point out that the Economic White Paper last year came out during Easter week and that Easter was exceedingly late?

Mr. Eric Fletcher: I should like to ask the Leader of the House, first, what are the Government's intentions in regard to the future of the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill, in respect of which there are still a great many Amendments and new Clauses down for consideration, and, second, when the House will have an opportunity of considering the White Paper on the Lisbon Conference?

Mr. Crookshank: That has to be published before it can be discussed.

Mr. Fletcher: The White Paper was published ten days ago.

Mr. Crookshank: My reply was the reply which I gave on the previous occasion. I was merely repeating it. I

said then that after the White Paper had been published it would be necessary, if the House desired it, and as my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary indicated, to have a debate. But it will not be next week. The debate on the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill will be continued this evening, after the conclusion of business at 10 o'clock.

Mr. I. Mikardo: Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm or deny a story contained in one of the more imaginative newspapers today to the effect that he is planning a continuous three days' Sitting, and will he be assured that if he is planning such an event a number of my hon. Friends are in very good training for it?

Major H. Legge-Bourke: Arising out of the question of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), will my right hon. Friend consider bringing forward that part of the Army Act concerned with the reading of the Riot Act, for the benefit of the Opposition?

Hon. Members: Oh.

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is an unusual amount of noise for so early in the afternoon.

Mr. Geoffrey Bing: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House about an entirely non-contentious Measure—the Customs and Excise Bill? If it were possible to get general agreement to pass that Measure through all its stages, I suggest that it would assist hon. Members who are putting down Amendments for the Committee stage of the Finance Bill, because we should be able to amend it from the Customs and Excise Bill. I know that there are a great many Amendments which hon. Members seek to make to that Measure, and it is awkward if we have to go back to past Finance Bills for that purpose.

Mr. Crookshank: It is not down for next week, but I note what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said.

Mr. T. Driberg: When the right hon. Gentleman is considering future business, either for next Wednesday or another day, will he bear in mind the importance of having a debate on the situation in Malaya, especially in view of the


deterioration of that situation, aggravated by the new and more ruthless policy now being pursued?

Mr. Crookshank: Yes, Sir. I have no doubt that will be a very suitable subject for a Supply Day when we return.

Mr. Cyril Osborne: I should like to ask the Leader of the House if Monday's business is exempted? If not, would he consider giving an extra hour, as there are so many hon. Members wishing to take part? Second, would he consider whether it is really worth while issuing an Economic Survey, since the forecasts in all the previous five Surveys have proved to be inaccurate?

Mr. Crookshank: The Finance Bill is exempted business.

BILL PRESENTED

POST OFFICE (AMENDMENT) BILL

"to increase to threepence the maximum poundage payable in respect of postal orders for amounts not exceeding twenty-one shillings," presented by Mr. Gammans; supported by Mr. Boyd-Carpenter; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 82.]

DEBATES (CALLING OF MEMBERS)

3.48 p.m.

Mrs. E. M. Braddock: On a point of order. Before we proceed with the Business for the day can I have your guidance and assistance in a certain matter, Mr. Speaker? I do not want to make any reference to the incident which took place in the House last Thursday morning. The reason I am asking for assistance and guidance is that I am very anxious not to have a recurrence of that kind of incident, because, if there were, it might be necessary for me to refuse to leave the Chamber, and I should hate to put the Serjeant at Arms in the difficult position of attempting to carry me out physically.
I raised a similar matter earlier—in the last Parliament but one. Can you tell me what is the position with reference to the method of catching your eye? Is it necessary for an hon. Member to intimate to you that he or she desires to speak? Is it then necessary for him or her continually to canvass you or your successors in the Chair for the purpose of deciding whether or not he or she is allowed to speak? Is a list prepared which is passed from you to your deputy and from him to his deputy and back again?
I want to draw your attention to the fact that on Wednesday I received a postcard from an hon. Member on the Government back benches which intimated that he was going to make reference to myself in the National Health Service Bill debate. I am wondering whether he knew, and, if so, how he knew, that he was to be called upon to speak in that debate. I looked at HANSARD carefully when I received it—because I was not here—and I found that at 6.34 p.m. on that day the hon. Member was called by you. How did he know he was to be called? Is there a special way of dealing with this matter, because if there is I think all hon. Members are entitled to know about it.
As you know, I sat through the whole of the debate on the textile industry. I saw people come into the House, be called, speak, and disappear and never appear again—and they had never appeared before. I sat and watched them. I watched the situation very carefully. I have read in HANSARD every word of what happened in the difficult situation in which I was put. I am not making


any comment, because the public know what the position was and I believe that I was right. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order."] I am entitled to express an opinion. There is nobody in this country who can prevent me from saying what I want to say when I want to say it.
I am saying to you, Mr. Speaker, that the country as a whole has taken a point of view in this matter. A lot of hon. Members opposite came into the House when the Division was called. They knew nothing whatever about it, had no idea of what was happening, and voted as they were told.
I want to know what the position is, because I think it is a very serious situation if Members can intimate to other Members that they intend to refer to them in a debate which has not started. If there is a list, can we know? Can we know what we must do in order to be allowed to speak, because unless we do know there will be some very serious differences in the House and I am going to be part of them, and I am warning you in advance.

Sir Herbert Williams: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. Are you aware that my best speeches have never yet been delivered?

Mr. Speaker: The question put to me by the hon. Lady deserves a serious answer. The facts are these: the calling of Members when several rise to speak is in the discretion of the Chair. A custom has grown up, long before my time, that on set debates hon. Members on both sides who desire to speak have sent in their names to the Speaker saying that they desire to be called if there is time. That list, although sometimes of assistance to the Chair in indicating Members who are ready to speak, is by no means binding on the Chair, and for my part, though I receive names when they are sent in to me and I consider them, I never consider myself bound, in calling a Member, by the question of whether or not he or she has given me notice.
One of the considerations that I have in mind always is to try to give hon. Members who have hitherto not spoken, or who have spoken only on a few occasions, a chance of being heard if they so desire. As for the incident, which the hon. Lady mentioned, of the postcard from another hon. Member, it was,

of course, quite wrong for that hon. Member to assume with any certainty that he might catch my eye.

Mrs. Braddock: He did.

Mr. Speaker: It is a courteous custom that if one Member intends to refer to another hon. Member in the course of debate, notice should be given, but that should always be given with the proviso, "if I manage to catch Mr. Speaker's eye," because there is no guarantee whatever that any Member, in these crowded debates, can be called.

Mrs. Braddock: Perhaps I might now be permitted to read the post-card, Mr. Speaker, so that you will see exactly why I am raising this matter and asking you how it was possible for the Member to know that he would be called in the debate. It is dated 26th March, and it says:
Dear Mrs. Braddock,
In case you want to be present on the National Health Service Bill, I intend to refer to your speech against Clause 1 of last year's Bill and your subsequent vote for it. Don't acknowledge.
The card is signed.
It is the content of the post-card that I am concerned with. The hon. Member said that he intends to refer to me. [HON. MEMBERS: "Who?"] If hon. Members will look at HANSARD for Thursday, time 6.34 p.m., they will have no need to ask me the details.
Do I take it that in major debates—I am not talking about Committee stages—if a person desires to speak, he or she must notify you first? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I am asking Mr. Speaker. Must they notify you first of all, and then continually canvass you to see whether they are to be called? Second, is it usual in the House for a Member whose constituency is repeatedly referred to in the course of a debate to be refused permission to speak during that debate?

Mr. Speaker: On the first point, there is very little I can add to what I have said. It is a coincidence that the hon. Member who gave the hon. Lady notice was called. I had, of course, no knowledge of that at all. As regards the wider question, it is not necessary, I repeat, for hon. Members to give their names in to the Chair. The custom has grown up long before my time. In some ways it is a


convenience, but it does not bind the Chair in any way and I do not consider myself bound by it.

Mr. Frank Bowles: May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to give a little clearer direction: that an hon. Member who writes to you gets no priority whatever over a person who goes through the normal procedure of rising in his place? Will you give that assurance?

Mr. Speaker: I certainly will. I give no priority to hon. Members who write to me. I would go even a little further and say that, as a human being, and being mortal, I sometimes find myself prejudiced against Members who, in the course of a crowded debate, when I have to weigh up so many conflicting claims, pester me in the Chair. Although I try not to let it do so, I think that subconsciously it rather prejudices me against them.

Mr. Iain MacLeod: I am the hon. Member referred to, Mr. Speaker. I wrote three post-cards, one to the Leader of the Opposition, one to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) and one to the hon. Lady. I understand that if a Member intends to refer to other Members in a debate, that is the ordinary custom of the House. In view of the incident with which the hon. Lady was concerned, she will find front HANSARD that as she could not reply to me, I omitted all reference to her in my speech.
I had no knowledge whatever that I was to be called in the debate, or when, and I wrote giving to the two right hon. Gentlemen and to the hon. Lady the ordinary information that, I should have thought, was courteous from one Member of Parliament to another.

Mr. I. Mikardo: I wonder whether I can, with great respect, Mr. Speaker, ask you if you would find it convenient to go a little further than you did even in the extremely valuable reply which you made to my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles)? I am sure we all appreciate the very great difficulties which the Chair has in the selection of speakers, the very many factors which the Speaker has to take into account, and the difficulty of memory above all other things. But this practice, which, as you

say, has grown up under your predecessors, seems—and I think this will be agreed by hon. Members on both sides of the House—to have certain reprehensible features about it, even though it may be a convenience.
I think, Sir, that you would find a general welcome in the House to an expression of view on your part that you would not receive such notes in advance of Members desiring to speak and that Members who send in their names would not have their names included on a list, even remotely for guidance, and that you would not receive any representations whatever except the representation which a Member makes when he rises in his place.
I am quite sure that if it were known that that was the general practice, one useful advantage would be that the average length of speeches would tend to be shorter, because Members would not prepare them several days in advance. That is something which might be useful. I put it to you, Sir, with respect, that if you were to say to the House, "Let us go back to the initial practice of no writing to the Chair—no nagging the Chair—but of Members getting up in their places," I am quite sure that the House would be with you.

Mr. Speaker: The House will, I hope, forgive me if I do not feel able straight away to make a breach of long-established custom which has been in use ever since I became a Member of the House, but I have great sympathy with the tenor and sense of what the hon. Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo), has said. I hope that this time has not been wasted if it has enabled hon. Members to have a sincere appreciation of the difficulties in which the Chair is often placed in discharging this task.

Mr. Archer Baldwin: Do you not think that it is of some assistance to you, Mr. Speaker, to have intimations from hon. Members who wish to speak? Then you have opportunity to ascertain how long it is since an hon. Member spoke before. Surely it is quite impossible for you to remember how long it is since an hon. Member spoke before.

Mr. Bevan: In view of the fact that you have twice referred to the long-established practice, Mr. Speaker, may I call attention to the fact that, for more


than 10 years of my experience of the House, Mr. Speaker Fitzroy always refused to form a list and always refused to take names. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I certainly recollect that. It was much later that a list was started to be formed.

Sir Ian Fraser: Mr. Speaker will you bear in mind another experience and a very different recollection? I sat under Mr. Speaker Fitzroy for the whole of his time in the Chair and it was found convenient, as, I think, it may be found convenient, to Members of all ranks—

Mr. Julian Snow: And colour, no doubt.

Sir I. Fraser: I have in mind the rank of Privy Councillor. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It is a status that gives special precedence in this House, and I do not question it. But, having regard to all the circumstances, I beg to remind you, Mr. Speaker, of my recollection that, under Mr. Speaker Fitzroy, it was possible to have a due and proper admixture of the spontaneous choice of the Chair of those who wished to speak and the Chair's consideration of such factors as whether an hon. Member had a special interest, whether he had been absent, whether he could not be here at the beginning of the debate but came in an hour or two later. All those are factors that are considered, and I, for my part, would beg of you to take into account all these various factors without tying yourself too strongly to the one system or the other.

Mr. Speaker: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman.

Orders of the Day — NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE [MONEY]

Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision with respect to the making and recovery of charges in respect of services provided under the National Health Service Act, 1946, and the National Health Service (Scotland) Act, 1947, and for purposes connected therewith, it is expedient to authorise—

(a)the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the said Act of the present Session in the sums payable under any enactment out of moneys so provided;
(b)the payment into the Exchequer of any sums received by the Minister of Health or the Secretary of State under the said Act of the present Session.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."—[Mr. Crookshank.]

4.3 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Bing: I hope the House will excuse me for intervening on this matter before having given an intimation either by letter or by postcard to the Leader of the House, but I think that it would be a great pity if the House were to part with the Money Resolution without giving it rather more consideration than we were able to give it in Committee, when the debate was closured.
I do not for a moment intend anything I say to be a criticism of the Chairman in accepting the Closure after the Minister of Health had spoken. His speech was of such a nature it was felt that nothing could be done to continue the debate. However, it would be unfortunate if this House were to pass this Resolution without warning the Government that possibly the Resolution is not wide enough to cover the Bill. Therefore, I want for a few moments to direct the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the Money Resolution.
I hope that hon. Members, for what, I hope, will be a fruitful if not an unduly prolonged debate, have equipped themselves—[Interruption.] I am sorry Mr. Speaker, but I find it a little difficult to make myself heard in the Chamber because of the noise, and I think it is


difficult for you to hear me. I was saying that I hope that hon. Members have thought to equip themselves with a copy of the Money Resolution from the Vote Office so that they can take part in what, I hope, will be a useful debate, and so that they will be able to follow me in the points I want to make with regard to it.
If hon. Gentlemen have a copy of the Money Resolution, and will look at the passage which deals with payments into the Exchequer of sums received by the Ministry of Health or the Secretary of State, they will see why it seems to me that—and this is the point on which I should like to have an answer from the Minister of Health—it is an absolutely mandatory provision that these payments must be made into the Exchequer. The difficulty in which I think the House will find itself will be when we come to discuss the Bill and Clause 6, where we shall find that some of those payments, far from going to the Exchequer, may be made to the regional hospital boards.
I do not want to delay unduly over what hon. Members may think a very technical point—a point which was illumined last time by the hon. Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers), who had an opportunity of discussing the matter at some length. I shall not read the report of the debate on the matter, but only refer to the point on it which is dealt with in Erskine May. There was a debate on the Coal Mines Bill, and there was in that Money Resolution—I hope I have the attention of the Minister of Health, because it would be a great mistake if we were to embark on this Bill at this stage only to find that our discussions were out of order, and that, by a deplorable mistake, the right hon. Gentleman had produced a Money Resolution which made it impossible for us to proceed with the Bill.
I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give serious consideration to the point I want to put to him. The right hon. Gentleman never pays attention to the points put from this side of the House. He may recall saying, this time last week, when he was asked to consider whether it would be necessary to give a second day for the consideration of the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill, that that would be quite unnecessary, and that we

could deal with that Measure and another one on the same night. If he is as wrong about this matter as he was about that, he ought, perhaps, to give some attention to and take notice of points put to him from this side of the House, where we, occasionally, are right about questions of procedure.
The point that arises is that the Money Resolution provides entirely for payments into the Treasury, and there is no authority, as far as I can see, for moneys to be paid anywhere else. There have been attempts on Bills of this sort, when the Government have provided for payments into the Treasury, to have Amendments moved so that moneys, instead of being' paid into the Treasury, could be paid elsewhere.
The case to which I want to refer the right hon. Gentleman, and which, I am sure, is familiar to him, because it was dealt with by a number of leading Members of his own party, is the case of the Coal Mines Act, 1930. I will not delay the House at this stage with any too long extracts from the Rulings by the Chairman and Deputy Chairman at that time in regard to that matter, but I would just read a passage from Erskine May which deals with the point:
The Coal Mines Bill, 1930, and the related resolution directed that certain charges should be repaid to the Board of Trade by the owners of coal mines. The resolution also contained general words authorising the payment by the Board of Trade of such other expenses as may be required to be defrayed for the purposes of the said Act. After drawing attention to those words, a Member sought to move an amendment whereby the charges which might be incurred under the Bill could be met out of public money, but the Chairman ruled that the general words covering the payment of expenses in the Bill did not override the specific directions relating to charges in the Financial Resolution, and that the amendment was therefore out of order.
In this Resolution we have, of course, a specific direction, that all funds should be paid into the Treasury. Paragraph (b) of the Resolution says that all we are authorised to do is to direct that sums shall be paid into the Treasury—that there shall be payment into the Exchequer of any sums received by the Ministry of Health. Therefore, if we pass this Resolution, the right hon. Gentleman is not authorised, in my submission to him and to the House, to make


payments anywhere else. Clause 6 (6) of the Bill says:
Regulations made under the principal Act or this Act providing for the making and recovery of charges in respect of any services may provide for the reduction of the sums which would otherwise be payable by a Regional Hospital Board.
Here is a provision, not for paying the money to the Treasury but for paying the money to a regional hospital board. These charges are to be collected and not paid as we are authorising under the Money Resolution but paid direct to the regional Hospital Boards.
Now, this may be a very convenient and effective method of dealing with it; I am not saying that it is not, but I think it would be very unfortunate for the House to embark on the Committee stage of a Bill before making quite certain that the issues are entirely covered by the Money Resolution. All I ask the right hon. Gentleman to do is this. If he thinks there is anything in my argument, let us not get to a stage where we shall have to start arguing with the Chair in Committee on whether this or that Clause is out of order.
Let him take the Resolution away and look at it again; let him adjourn this discussion and give us an opportunity of going on to some other and more valuable Measure, such as the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill. Let him look at this again to make certain that our discussions are in order.
Now may I just refer, very generally, to the other issues which I think arise out of this Resolution?

Sir Patrick Spens: The hon. and learned Gentleman has told the House that Clause 6 (6) provides that these moneys shall be payable to a regional hospital board, and he used the phrase "payable to a regional hospital board" on several occasions. If he will read the subsection he will see that it provides that
Regulations made under the principal Act or this Act providing for the making and recovery of charges in respect of any services may provide for the reduction of the sums which would otherwise be payable by a Regional Hospital Board, Hospital Management Committee, Board of Management, Board of Governors or Executive Council to persons by whom those services are provided by the amount of the charges authorised by the regulations.

I suggest that the hon. and learned Gentleman has not even taken the trouble to read the subsection.

Mr. Bing: I have taken the trouble to read it. Naturally, I would not detain the House on this matter unless it was something to which I had given some study. The hon. and learned Gentleman has occupied a very high judicial position, and it would be of great value if he were to join in this debate. I may be entirely mistaken in my view, but whether we have been Lord Chief Justices or not, once we come into this House we are all equal, and we are all equally entitled to express what we think is our view of the law.
Mine may be, and very often is, an entirely mistaken view of the law, and I should be wrong if I were to conceal it from the House. I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman, who has far greater experience in these matters than I, will take the opportunity of correcting me if I am wrong and putting the position right. All I am doing is, not laying down the law, but merely trying to state—

Mr. Speaker: I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will, as he very well can, crystallise more clearly the precise objection he has to this Money Resolution.

Mr. Bing: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for saving me from the distraction of the hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens). If I might just deal with his intervention, the point here is, I think, a comparatively simple one. As I understand, all this Money Resolution entitles us to do is to collect the sums which are obtained from these charges and pay them into the Treasury. What the Government are proposing to do under Clause 6, if it were in order, is paying those moneys to the hospital boards instead of into the Treasury, and the hospital boards will then not pay so much to the Treasury as they normally would have done before. That, as I understand it, is the position. I may be entirely wrong, but if I am I am sure that in the course of the debate I shall be corrected by other hon. and learned Gentlemen who have given more study to the matter than I have.
4.15 p.m.
I do not want to delay the House unduly on this, but I should just like to turn to another and more important aspect of this Resolution. The Resolution is in two parts. It provides, in the first part, for
the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase attributable
under the Bill. That is the first issue. Therefore, there is a sum going out of the Exchequer.
Under the second part of the Resolution there are sums coming into the Exchequer, and it does not seem to me that under the Resolution there is any authority—and this is the matter which I hope the right hon. Gentleman will deal with—for any accounting to take place earlier than that. The sums have either to come out of the Treasury or to go into the Treasury. What we want from the right hon. Gentleman is what those sums are; some indication of the magnitude of the sums he has in mind. We particularly want to know whether the sum to which he refers in paragraph (a) will be greater or less than the sum in paragraph (b).
The right hon. Gentleman's argument, as I understand it, is that the sum under paragraph (b), and the justification for this Measure, will be £400 million plus whatever are the sums collected. Thus he will arrive at a global figure. There will be, on the one hand, a total expenditure out of the Exchequer of £400 million under the Health Service, and that will be met by sums coming in. We ought to get clear from the right hon. Gentleman what we tried to get from him in Committee, namely, roughly speaking, what sums of money he envisages are represented by these two items. Otherwise, the House passes to consider the Bill under a quite confused and mistaken point of view.
I do not want to take up any more time of the House on this matter, although I think it is a serious matter. It is very important on the Report stage of a Money Resolution, if we have this type of procedure—to which I think there are certain disadvantages—to adhere strictly to it, and I hope that the Minister of Health will deal with this point in a serious way and not in the flippant way in which he sometimes deals with Parlia-

mentary procedure. It really is not in accordance with the dignity of the Leader of the House just to ignore any points which any hon. Member cares to raise on the procedure to be adopted.

Mr. Speaker: I should like to intervene here, because I doubt whether any speech either asking for or giving an estimate of the sums involved would be strictly in order. As I read the Financial Resolution, the magnitude of the sums will depend upon regulations to be made later under the various Clauses, so it would seem to me that the Resolution itself is debatable upon a very narrow issue.

Mr. Aneurin Bevan: May I be permitted to draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that the regulations will have to be drawn up within the boundaries of the Bill, and will not exceed the boundaries of the Bill? Paragraph (b) of the Financial Resolution says:
the payment into the Exchequer of any sums received by the Minister of Health or the Secretary of State under the said Act.
May I call your attention to the complicated nature of the administrative machinery which immediately invokes this Resolution? The executive councils are in contract with the chemists, the dentists and the general practitioners. The dentists and the chemists will have certain claims upon the executive council, but if, in the meantime, they receive certain payments from the patients, then the executive councils would have a contra account. So, in the case of the executive councils the position is quite clear: the chemists and dentists would receive from the executive councils net amounts and not gross amounts.
With the regional hospital boards, however, the situation is entirely different, because under the Bill the regional hospital boards are permitted to make charges to patients for certain apparatus, and for those charges payments will be made automatically, we gather, into the Treasury. Therefore, the Ministry of Health will not be able to set those incomes from those patients as a contra account against their expenditure, but automatically the Minister will receive those payments.
If that be the case—I am not sure that I am correct, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong—is a payment to a regional hospital board construed as a payment into the


Exchequer or a payment into the Ministry of Health, which must automatically go to the Exchequer? In that case, they are unable to set that receipt of money off against the expenditure of the money, so that under the Bill we get a net loss of money to the regional hospital boards, which they will only be able to recover by restricting their services to the patients.
That is the difficulty we are in. It is a very serious and real difficulty. It is not merely procedural. What is the nature of the Financial Resolution to which we are being asked to agree? We raised this question the other day, and we did not receive from the right hon. Gentleman a clear reply. I put the question specially to him: Is a regional hospital board entitled, after the passage of this Bill, to use any receipts it may receive from charges made for abdominal belts and things of that kind to be set off against the rest of their expenditure? If they are able to do that, then the position is clearer.
The situation with regard to the executive councils is quite clear. The chemists will receive so many shillings. If they do not receive the shillings, there will be more money for the executive councils, and if they receive the shillings that amount will be deducted from the amount received from the executive councils. The position is clear about the chemists, but it is not clear about the hospital boards which are not in contract with anybody but provide the services themselves and the charges for their services. Are we clear that they are able to use that money and set it off against increased expenditure in other fields?

Mr. Crookshank: I am sorry if the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) thought that I was being inattentive, but I listen better when I do not watch the speaker. I listened to every word that he said. I find it easier to do it that way. Of course, the more attractive the speaker the more important it is not to look at him.
I did, as a matter of fact, do my best to explain this matter the other night. I spoke twice on the Money Resolution, but may I remind the House again that it is, in my submission, drawn in very wide terms in order that we should not get into any difficulty during discussions on the Bill. As I reminded the Committee at the time, that was not always

the case years ago, but now the normal practice is to draw the Money Resolution so wide that there is practically never a debate on a Money Resolution nowadays, because it is not restricted in form. I do not consider that this Money Resolution is restricted in form.
Paragraph (a) relates to the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament, and, as I pointed out the other day, that was put in to provide for hardship cases. Paragraph (b) relates to the payment into the Exchequer of sums received by the Ministry of Health. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) put it perfectly clearly when he said that in certain cases the money received in cash by chemists and others would be a set-off and that is what is referred to in Clause 6 (6).
He and the hon. and learned Gentleman want to know what will happen to the rest. This only applies at present in the Bill to the provision that deals with appliances. The present intention is that money recovered in that way—cash recovered through the appliances account, so to speak—will, in fact, be paid into the Exchequer. It will not be a set-off to the hospital boards.
In the normal course it is usual for all cash which comes into the Government's hands to be paid into the Exchequer, and afterwards, what happens to it and how it may be returned or redistributed over the field of public expenditure, including the regional hospital boards, is another problem. In the first instance, the cash, as always in the past, comes into the Exchequer in these sort of cases. That is all that this Money Resolution does, in fact, provide.

Mr. Bevan: That is a serious statement. What the right hon. Gentleman is saying is that any money received by a hospital regional board as a result of a charge on appliances is automatically conceived to be paid into the Ministry of Health and, therefore, automatically, in its turn, goes into the Treasury. That means, therefore, that in no circumstances whatever can the regional hospital board do what the executive council can do, make a set-off against their expenditure.
It really means that we are starting off this year either with a severely contracted hospital service or with a Supplementary Estimate immediately in mind. If the right hon. Gentleman felt himself


able to say that in his administration the regional hospital boards could regain the money they received from the charges and set that money off against the rest of their expenditure, then the Financial Resolution would not have been so restricted.
As the Resolution is now drawn, it is restricted, and the money must automatically go into the Treasury. That seems to be an exceedingly serious restriction of the Resolution. Either the regional hospital boards will be financially restricted throughout the year, or we have to envisage at once a Supplementary Estimate. Hon. Members opposite have said so many naughty things about Supplementary Estimates that it is rather grotesque if we start off the financial year knowing that we are to have one.

Mr. M. Turner-Samuels: Will the Minister look for a moment at the Money Resolution, because I am certain that he does not want to deal with any academic, far-fetched and technical point. I would ask him not to follow the observations made by the hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens) because, in my submission, he was quite wrong in what he said in that he has overlooked an important statement in subsection (6). It is perfectly true that it says that these charges can be made payable by a regional hospital board, and I think that it is equally true that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) said that the charges can be made payable to a regional hospital board.
It is, however, perfectly clear that the Money Resolution seeks to provide only for payments to the Exchequer. That is the beginning and end so far as I can see. This limits the boundary that is set to the ability to pay out any money under this Money Resolution. If the Minister will look at Clause 6 (6) of the Bill, he will see that in its most obvious meaning it not only includes paying moneys to the Exchequer, but also means paying moneys to persons, hospital committees and so forth. The point that the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch was making was that we cannot do that. It would, of course, so far as the Money Resolution is concerned, be all right if the Bill referred only to the payment of moneys

into the Exchequer, but it goes further than that.
The reason why the Money Resolution becomes inadequate and loses capacity to operate over the full course set by the Bill is that the Bill refers to more than payments to the Exchequer and goes on to provide for other payments. If this Money Resolution is passed it seems to me, with all respect—and I am merely putting this forward for the Minister's consideration—that the Money Resolution will stretch so far as reference to any payment into the Exchequer is concerned, but not go so far as to embrace the payments obviously adumbrated in Clause 6 (6), namely, the reference to other payments. That seems to be the issue. As I understand it, that is the point which the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch has made. It appears to me that this Money Resolution might fall short of what is needed, by its language, in order to cover the whole purview of Clause 6 of the Bill.

4.30 p.m.

Dr. Barnett Stross: The Minister stated that the field we were discussing was very narrow, for it referred only to the hospital service and, in that service, only to the charges for appliances. He may be mistaken in that. Many hospitals which supply outpatients who are required to pay for part of the service, also supply drugs and medicines. Therefore, "appliances" is not the only term with which we are dealing.
On the other hand, Clause 6 (6) does not seem to be as complicated as some of us thought. Is it not the case that these regional hospital boards, boards of management, and boards of governors must be empowered to be in relationship with persons who are providing the service?

Mr. Speaker: I do not want to be unduly strict, but it seems to me that in discussing the Report stage of this Resolution hon. Members are tending to discuss the provisions of the Bill, and that is really not in order.

Dr. Stross: I was merely pointing out something which I think makes the matter clear, namely, that if the persons who are providing the service, and who are mentioned in subsection (6), receive moneys from people served, naturally they cannot have the same amount of


money paid to them as they would otherwise have got if they had not received partial payment.

Mr. Turner-Samuels: On a point of order. In view of what you have just said, Mr. Speaker, I realise that on Report stage of the Money Resolution one would not ordinarily discuss the Bill; but I ask you to consider this point. Suppose, for argument, that the Money Resolution is defective, or suppose the contention is that it is defective. Is it not proper now to refer to it so that, if necessary, it can be reconsidered?

Mr. Speaker: The Resolution says, in paragraph (a):
the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the said Act of the present Session …
It seems to me as wide as it can be.

Mr. Turner-Samuels: Of course, the Money Resolution refers in the most precise, clear terms to:
the payment into the Exchequer. …
There is no doubt about that, and there is no area for dispute there. But what is being contended is that, although that is stated, it does not go far enough with reference to the provisions of the Bill. The Bill goes further, in that it refers to payments to persons. Whatever the definition of "persons" may be, it does not include the Exchequer. That is the point.

Mr. Speaker: Paragraph (a) provides for:
the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the said Act of the present Session in the sums payable under any enactment out of moneys so provided;
If there are payments to be made, surely that would be covered.

Dr. Stross: I should like to finish what I was saying. Obviously, if some persons have received part payment from someone else, there must be a reduction. That is clear. In that respect the matter is fairly safe, but could the Minister explain whether the technique in which we are involved is not more complicated by the fact that we are dealing with other kinds of services which are charged for in part, such as drugs and medicines for outpatients and, much more complicated still, the services to T.B. out-patients and those services given by chest clinics or

venereologists? We are in a complicated situation. I cannot see my way clearly, and I should like the Minister to help us.

Mr. John Baird: I, too, am rather puzzled. Two types of appliance are supplied. First, dentures are supplied by dentists, and other appliances are provided by opticians.

Mr. Speaker: There is not a word about dentists in this Resolution.

Mr. Baird: No, but this is an important point, and I think that it is relevant. The dentist charges the patient for the work he does and for the materials he supplies, and—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Surely, that comes under the Bill and not under this Resolution.

Mr. Baird: Yes, but the Resolution refers to:
the payment into the Exchequer of any sums received by the Minister of Health.…
I was referring to what happened with the dentists and opticians, but the position is different with regard to appliances supplied in hospitals. Those appliances have to be paid for. The material has to be bought.

Mr. Speaker: That comes under the Bill.

Mrs. E. M. Braddock: I want to ask a question which has not been mentioned so far. I do not see anything in the Money Resolution which makes provision for the transfer of money obtained from the National Assistance Board by people who have to apply to the Board for the purpose of paying for the surgical appliances, and so on, that they require. What happens? Where is the regulation about money in that connection? There is no power here to transfer money which has to be applied for from the National Assistance Board in payment of these appliances.
Is that provided for? I shook like to know how that matter is dealt with, because there is no reference at all to it. In the very nature of the Bill, vast sums of money are bound to be requested from the National Assistance Board by people who are unable to pay for the surgical appliances. Where does that come under the Money Resolution?

Mr. Baird: I should like to take my point a little further. If the hospitals are supplying goods, a certain amount of money would be paid into the Exchequer. I should like to know how much that amount will be, because this will be a direct tax on the hospitals.

Mr. Bevan: We do not want to part with the Report stage of the Money Resolution until we know to what extent the Resolution may restrict us in Committee. It is true that in the Bill no specific charges are mentioned. There is merely the power to make regulations to make charges. When we come to the Committee stage and when we move Amendments to extinguish altogether a charge for an appliance, is it the Minister's view that those Amendments would be strictly in order?

Mr. Speaker: That question would be for the Chair in Committee. I should imagine, if my opinion is of any value to the right hon. Gentleman, that the Resolution is amply wide enough. I have been looking at it since this little debate started, and I think that it is wider than the Bill.

Mr. Bevan: That is a very important Ruling indeed. It means, therefore, that we can in fact wipe out the whole of the hospital charges under the Bill so that, at the end of the day, the Treasury may receive no money at all. That would be in order, I gather, under the Money Resolution?

Mr. Speaker: An Amendment to reduce the charge would be in order, certainly.

Mr. Bevan: Not to reduce the charge, but to extinguish the charge. We can reduce the charge, we know, because no charge is contained in the Bill. They are only in the regulations. May I, therefore—

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: On a point of order—

Mr. Bevan: I am on a point of order. May I, therefore, point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that we can say that no regulation shall be made that charges more than 2d. for an abdominal belt.

Mr. Speaker: The Amendment would be perfectly in order. It would not be restricted by this Resolution.

Mr. Bevan: That Amendment we gather would be in order. I thought so myself. The charge can be reduced or limited power can be given to the Minister to make regulations for certain amounts, but would it be in order to extinguish the charge and make no regulations at all?

Mr. Speaker: So far as I can see, there is nothing in the Resolution which restricts the right hon. Gentleman. It only authorises
the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the said Act of the present Session in the sums payable under any enactment out of the moneys so provided.
Then (b) says that
… any sum received by the Minister of Health or the Secretary of State under the said Act of the present Session
shall be paid into the Exchequer. It does not authorise the Minister to receive sums. It says that if he does receive them he pays them into the Exchequer.

Mr. Bevan: That is most valuable advice and will be of great assistance to us when we come to the Committee stage, because it will be obvious to Members of the House that any moneys that would be received, if any charges are made, will not assist the hospital authorities at all, but would automatically go to make up the £40 million for the general practitioners.

Mrs. Braddock: Can I have an answer to my question?

Mr. Crookshank: I can only speak again with permission of the House, but if I may say so, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) has now agreed that this is the widest possible Resolution which could be put down.

Mr. Bevan: I wanted to be quite sure.

Mr. Crookshank: I am not the Chairman of Committees and I was trying to explain to the House what were my intentions and those of the Government in drawing the Resolution so widely. I thought, as indeed has happened, the right hon. Gentleman would be able to read between the lines.
The hon. Lady the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock), asked me about the National Assistance Board


and the payments that they would be making. That is quite without this Bill. We do not, in this form of legislation, give authority to the Board to do what they are already empowered to do. We are merely saying if, under existing Acts, certain sums are payable then any increases which are attributable to this Act can also be paid in the same way. It authorises us to carry on, and this is one of the things on which the Board can make payments.

Mrs. Braddock: Does it authorise the regional hospital boards or the hospitals to make a charge upon the Assistance Board? In those cases where patients are unable to make any contribution themselves because the whole of their income comes from the Assistance Board, will the regional hospitals boards be able to make a levy upon the Board and get back the money they cannot get from the patient?

Mr. Crookshank: I do not know how far we can go with this, because it is discussing the Bill itself.

Mrs. Braddock: It is not.

Mr. Crookshank: It would not be in order for me to make a Second Reading speech in answer to the hon. Lady, but perhaps I may be allowed, quite briefly, to repeat what I said on Second Reading. In cases of hardship those who are unable to pay would be able to get the necessary assistance from the Assistance Board. The hospital would not come into it one way or the other. It has nothing to do with the hospital recovering from anywhere. The patient or applicant, whichever term hon. Members like, would automatically refer his own case to the Assistance Board and would get paid through that channel. The hospitals boards would not be in it at all.

Mr. Tom Brown: The question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock), is covered, I think, in Section 64 of the National Assistance Act, 1948. There has been no dispute about that; they are covered.

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Colonel Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Clause 1.—(CHARGES FOR CERTAIN DRUGS, MEDICINES AND APPLIANCES.)

4.45 p.m.

Dr. A. D. D. Broughton: On a point of order. May I draw your attention, Sir Charles, very briefly, to three facts before we proceed with the actual Committee stage, and ask that in the light of those facts you will be good enough to give a Ruling? The first fact is that this Bill is one of the utmost importance, affecting the health and the happiness of many of Her Majesty's most loyal subjects.
The second fact is that the Government allowed only one day for the debate on Second Reading. That meant that we were allowed a debate for only six hours, and in the course of that debate no more than six of my right hon. and hon. Friends were able to speak.
The third and last fact to which I should like to draw your attention is that here on these Labour benches we have a wealth of knowledge and practical experience of the National Health Service. In the light of those three facts, may I ask you to give a Ruling that as long as valuable contributions are being made to the debate you will not accept a Motion of Closure from the Government on any Clause or any Amendment which you have selected for consideration.

The Chairman: I am indebted to the hon. Member for Batley and Morley (Dr. Broughton), for he did me the kindness, not only to see me on this subject, but to send me in writing what he proposed to raise. Of course, the acceptance or rejection of the Closure is really governed by what the position is at the time when it is moved, and one could not give any guarantee either to accept or refuse it. One must judge on each case as it comes along. I have to act on what is meant by the Standing Order, and I shall do it according to the best of my judgment.
I agree with the hon. Member in what he said about the number who spoke on Second Reading. During the time I was in the Chair I took a note of 34


Members who wanted to speak, and only 13 Members were called. It seems to me that when we get on to the Committee stage of the Bill it might be for the convenience of the Committee to take together the Amendment to Clause 1, page 1, line 9 and all the subsequent 14 Amendments which deal with charges being excluded from the Bill. If we could discuss them together, there would be ample opportunity for a wide debate, and at the end, if necessary, the Committee could divide on them one by one. That might give Members more freedom.

Mr. Hector McNeil: I think it will be found that in the Amendments put down by my right hon. and hon. Friends there is a very great range of argument and that very different circumstances apply to each Amendment. In some cases there is a matter of principle which can be argued, and in others there are specific reasons why the Amendment should be accepted. It would be of no assistance to the Committee to take them altogether and it might even be a considerable embarrassment to us.

The Chairman: Perhaps I went rather ahead of time, but I thought the suggestion that I was going to make would be helpful. I was hoping to meet the views of the Committee, but if that is not for their convenience I will not pursue the matter, and retain my right of selection.

Mr. H. A. Marquand: I think it would be for the convenience of the Committee if we took together with the first Amendment on the Paper, which I propose to move shortly, the one which is down to Clause 1, page 1, line 9. Perhaps it would be for the convenience of myself and my hon. Friends if they were taken together.

The Chairman: I do not quite understand. This first Amendment I thought was very similar to the first Amendment to Clause 2, also standing in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand), and that it might be for the convenience of the Committee if those two were taken together.

Mr. A. Blenkinsop: I think it might be for the convenience of the House if we took the

first Amendment on the Order Paper and then the Amendment at the top of page 329, which is a proviso which goes with it. I do not know about the other.

The Chairman: They go together, but if the Amendment is defeated the proviso of course will fall.

Mr. Bevan: I wish to put a point arising out of your first statement, Sir Charles, when you said that it would be convenient to take these various charges together in a general debate and then subsequently you said that if that did not commend itself to the Committee you would continue to exercise your right of selection.
May I put it to you, in view of the fact that the whole essence of this legislation is discrimination as to what particular service there should be charges on, each Amendment should be taken separately, because the Minister himself has pointed out that, whereas it might have been in their minds to do it, the Government have now decided not to make regulations naming charges for aural aids and also not to charge for dental examination for those under 21?
Therefore, we have a Bill, the essence of which is that the charges are not all on certain services. In my respectful submission, it would be entirely inconsistent with the spirit of the Bill if the Chairman found himself unable to select an Amendment which left out a charge on a specific service.

The Chairman: I only suggested that they might be taken together in view of the fact that so many disappointed Members on the Second Reading did not have a chance to speak, and I thought that if we widened the debate a little they would be able to take part. It was only my suggestion, and I withdraw it now. We can take the Amendments one by one, I keeping my right to select Amendments under the Standing Order.

Mr. Marquand: I hope I did not make an error in the proviso to which I intended to refer as being something which could be taken with the first Amendment on the Order Paper. I thought it was not unreasonable that those two should be taken together.

The Chairman: I thought I made it clear that what I was pointing out was that the proviso will fall if the Amendment is defeated.

Mr. Edward Evans: Sir Charles, you referred to your right of selection of specific Amendments. Would it be in order for you to indicate to us what you are proposing to disallow, in order that we may be able to bring together those Amendments standing in the names of my hon. Friends and myself so as to get them in proper focus in the debate.

The Chairman: No, it would not, because I have not yet made up my mind. My offer, which has now been refused by the Committee, was to take the lot together. As we go along I have to decide what Amendments to call and what not to select.

Mr. Marquand: I beg to move, in page 1, line 6, after "making," to insert:
before the first day of April, nineteen hundred and fifty-four.
This Amendment is put down at the earliest point of the Committee stage to give the right hon. Gentleman the first available opportunity to remove what we regard as the most objectionable feature of the Bill. Picking it out as the most objectionable does not mean we do not regard this Bill as very objectionable indeed, and the acceptance of this Amendment would not remove our objections to the Bill, but it might help to remove the feeling which exists throughout the country that it is the Government's intention in this Measure to deal a body blow at the National Health Service.
The Bill proposes far reaching changes in the National Health Service Acts and it sets no term to them. Indeed, so far reaching are these contributions in some respects that not only does the Bill disappoint the expectations of the nation, which was promised a comprehensive National Health Service as long ago as 1944 by the Coalition Government, but it radically changes provisions which have been in existence ever since 1911.
The proposals themselves, when they were put before us by the right hon. Gentleman, were not justified on the ground that far reaching changes were necessary in the National Health Service. The right hon. Gentleman did not come to the House and say, "After a very careful review of the whole of the Service, I find great defects which ought to be rectified." It is true that he referred

in a kind of subsidiary form of argument, to the possibility of there being some abuses, but he rested his case on the ground of the national emergency. He said that Government expenditure must be reduced, and the overwhelming need to reduce Government expenditure was put forward as his main justification for the Bill.
I do not accept that argument, and neither do my hon. or right hon. Friends on this side of the Committee. I accept that the right hon. Gentleman feels that it is overwhelmingly necessary to reduce Government expenditure at this time, despite the very large size of the surplus which the Chancellor of the Exchequer expects to get at the end of the year. Even though he may feel that the present situation demands such drastic reductions in Government expenditure and that this Bill is necessary, surely he believes that the Government will eventually surmount those difficulties.
Surely he is confident that the Government, through the wise administration of his right hon. Friends and himself, will eventually find a way through our difficulties so that they will be overcome. Then he will be able to go to the nation and say, "Our difficulties are over. We have rectified the balance of payments and we have abolished internal inflation and all those dangers." We, on this side of the Committee, doubt the course of the policies of the Government, but we hope for the sake of the nation that he is right.
If we assume that the right hon. Gentleman is right, honest and genuine in the belief that he must reduce Government expenditure for the purposes which I have mentioned, surely he looks forward to the time when the emergency will be over, when he can proceed to provide that better service, which, as I have reminded the Committee, was promised in the Conservative Party's Election Manifesto. This Amendment provides the right hon. Gentleman with just that opportunity.
When we have gone through the difficulties which justify the imposition of the charges, let the Government take the opportunity of looking again at the Service to see what effect the charges which he proposes will have. Let him even take the chance of reconsidering the working of the whole Service, to see whether it is


really true, as was said in one of the Election Manifestos, that the Service had failed to provide adequately, for example, for the care of mothers and children.
5.0 p.m.
The Bill which was introduced in 1951, and to which a great deal of reference was made during the Second Reading debate on the present Measure, had a definite term to it, though it gave an opportunity for annual renewal if the emergency which justified that Measure had not come to an end. That is precisely what we are now proposing.
The Amendment which I have moved, and the other Amendment to which I have alluded, are designed to provide in the Bill exactly what we provided in the National Health Service Act, 1951—that it should come to an end on 1st April, 1954, so that its effect and the state of the Service in relation to the economy of the nation as a whole might be reviewed.
Perhaps I might be allowed to quote shortly from what I said on the Committee stage of the 1951 Bill. I said:
We should afford an opportunity to review the position and to be sure, after a reasonable interval, that the need for the charges still exists. At the same time, we should take the opportunity then to consider questions which ought to be answered. For example, how far have the charges—after this period has elapsed—been beneficial in improving the Service for children.
That is one of the arguments used again in regard to the Bill.
How far has any reduction taken place in that rather alarming figure of 61 per cent. for dentures which I quoted on the Second Reading of the Bill? Has there been any improvement in the numbers of school dentists?
That will be an important question to answer after a period of operation by the Bill in front of us, if it becomes law.
Have the charges imposed caused any hardship to anybody? How many persons have received payment from the Assistance Board?
That will certainly be a very relevant question to ask after a time, if the Bill goes through.
How has the cost of glasses"—
but that is irrelevent to the Bill.
Has it been possible to vary the charges downwards? Have economies, in the meantime, been worked out to make it unnecessary to continue the charges."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd May, 1951; Vol. 487, c. 1312.]

Those were, I suggested in the debate at that time, some of the questions which would need to be answered after a period.
A good many other questions will have to be asked as well as those, if the Bill goes through. We shall want to know the effect—and the Minister ought to want to know it—at the end of a period. What has been the effect upon the dental health of the population of imposing charges for dental treatment? He will want to know the effect upon disabled persons living in very poor circumstances. Has the charge for appliances led them to put off for too long renewing their appliances?
There may be other questions; and there ought to be an opportunity in the Bill for the House to get the answers and for the Minister to review the whole situation. If, on mature consideration, he then decides that he has made a mistake, or that he and his hon. Friends have been successful in conquering the economic difficulties which now beset us, he can alter the Bill, get rid of it altogether, or allow it to lapse.
The most important question of all was that which I mentioned at the latter part of the extract which I have given from my speech in 1951. The most important sentence is whether other economies have been possible in the meantime which may have reduced the need for savings by the method of charging.
On this side of the Committee nobody has ever advocated an extravagant and wasteful National Health Service. We may have been criticised for making the content of the Service too wide and for not restricting it at some point or other. We may have been generous, but we have never wished to be extravagant. Nobody ever suggested from these benches that there should be a prodigal throwing away of national resources in an unnecessary manner on the Health Service. Indeed, the main burden of the argument of hon. Friends behind me who disagreed with the Bill that I introduced a year ago was that there should be, if possible, a more prudent and economical administration so as to make the charges unnecessary. That has been the standpoint of all of us. Some of my hon. Friends said that there was not enough economy, I said we were making all the economies we could. There was no difference between us on the point.
I listed, in that debate, many economies that had been made, including the reduction of travelling expenses of patients and the appointment of teams of experts who were to visit the hospitals, and have visited them in very large numbers—which I gave at that time—to secure reduction in the size of establishments or to prune, wherever excessive administration expense on staff and the like might have occurred. I talked of the practice of the centralised purchase of hosiptal supplies, by which I was able to say that a saving of at least £2,800,000 had been made as compared with other methods.
Since that time a good deal of progress has been made in that direction, as I have reason to know. I should like to know in particular from the right hon. Gentleman whether the central purchase of all paper for the National Health Service is now in operation. I made plans for it while I was Minister and I would like to know whether it is fully in operation. I hope it is.
I mentioned also the possibility of economy on the drug bill. It was the large size of the drug bill to which the right hon. Gentleman particularly pointed when he was introducing the Bill as one of the reasons for effecting a saving. He said that the drug bill was going up so fast as to make that necessary. I referred to the work of the joint committee on prescribing, which did not consist only of mild recommendations as somebody has been inclined to suggest, but actually achieved reductions in price of quite a number of drugs. The committee published a list of recommendations which went out to doctors all over the country of remedies which ought not to be provided under the National Health Service.
I would like to mention particularly the special investigations into the position in particular areas which have been going on. They went on when I was Minister and during the time of my precedessor as well, I think. I cannot quite remember when they started. They are special investigations in particular areas, and I think they are still in progress, for going through the actual prescriptions of individual practitioners and, after careful scrutiny, drawing the matter to the attention of people who may be thought to be prescribing in an unnecessarily expensive way. Handled properly, this investigation in relation to the reaction of the general medical practitioner—

The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Hopkin Morris): The remarks of the right hon. Gentleman seem to be directed not so much to the Amendment as to the Clause. The effect of the Amendment is to limit the duration of the Bill to 1954. It is a strictly limited Amendment.

Mr. Marquand: Thank you, Mr. Hopkin Morris, I am sorry if I have been trespassing. Perhaps I can reserve some of these remarks until we come to the Question that the Clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Blenkinsop: On a point of order. It would be for the guidance of many of us, Mr. Hopkin Morris, if you could give us guidance on the following point. Is it not completely valid to the issue as to whether the charges are to be temporary or permanent, that other schemes which will bear full fruition in two or three years should be discussed? Unless we know whether these are practicable schemes, we cannot make any decision in Committee as to whether this should be a temporary or permanent charge.

The Deputy-Chairman: It would be more appropriate on the Question that the Clause stand part than at this stage.

Mr. Bevan: Is not the argument in our debate strictly relevant to the main case made by the Minister for the Bill? The main case was a fiscal case. Indeed, the second speaker for the Government made the statement that the Bill was necessary to increase charges to make people spend more on medicines so that they would spend less on imported goods. That being the case, the reason for the Bill is strictly related to the financial emergency. What is now suggested is that the Bill should end in 1954 because, by that time, the excessive expenditure on arms should have ceased and the emergency therefore, be at an end. So that, on time, the widest debate can take place if the Government observations were relevant.

The Deputy-Chairman: That might be true but, as I understand, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand), was pursuing another argument.

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. Frederick Messer: May I submit this point? I had it in mind to support this Amendment and, in doing so, to state as a valid


argument for it that there is a wide field of economy as yet untapped. If, however, the argument has to be left until we have the Question that the Clause stand part, it will be of no avail because the Amendment will not have been carried.

The Deputy-Chairman: If it is an argument, it appears to me to be in order, but if it is a review of the whole Act it is out of order on this Amendment.

Dr. Stross: Could you help me on this point, Mr. Hopkin Morris? As I see it, not only was a fiscal case made out, but we were given to understand that there had been abuse of the service. Those were the two issues put before us on the Second Reading. Here we are considering putting a term to the charges at a specific date. We have a precedent because it was in a previous debate. I do not see how anyone like myself can argue in favour of this Amendment if I cannot mobilise the reasons why I think there must be a term, and in doing so I have to consider what is happening over the whole field of the service, although as briefly as possible.
If, therefore, I am successful in catching your eye, am I not entitled to argue that this is the wrong way to save the money, that it is fiscally wrong? Other ways have already been suggested by a previous speaker by which we can more effectively save money, and those have not been tapped. Also, it is questionable whether there is any need to do this to prevent abuse.

5.15 p.m.

The Deputy-Chairman: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) put the argument accurately, but I do not think that this Amendment is an opportunity for a general survey of the entire Health Service.

Mr. McNeil: The Bill proposes to make limitations extending over the range of the service, and if we are to advance reasons showing why, in terms of time, a restriction should be placed on the Act, surely it is relevant to consider how the Service is operating. Therefore, the widest debate must be in order now.

The Deputy-Chairman: If the arguments are relevant at this time, certainly.

Mr. Marquand: I remember well that we had a similar query raised a year ago when, Mr. Hopkin Morris, your predecessor in the Chair, after asking me what was the relevance of a discussion of economies to a date, accepted my explanation that I was putting a date into the Bill because I had justified my original request for charges on the ground that I needed urgent economies which I could not at that time make in any other way; but that I was seeking by other methods, which I then outlined briefly, to effect the economies, and that I hoped it might be possible at the end of the period set to that Bill, to come to the House and say that, as those economies had been effective and as the national situation had now so improved, the need for that limit of expenditure no longer remained and we could let the Bill lapse.
I think the right hon. Gentleman is in the same position today as I attempted to argue then. He also would be well advised to set a term in the Bill. He also would be well advised, in the interval between now and that term, to explore vigorously all the possibilities of reducing the abuses, which he says exist, or economising generally in the Service, the need for which we do not deny. He referred particularly to the drug bill and that was why I mentioned, in the most cursory and passing way, the possibility of other economies in the National Health Service and was addressing myself particularly to the possibility of economies in the provision of drugs, which was the main justification for the Bill.
I would like to pursue that point although I have no intention of delaying the Committee long, with these observations. I had hoped to introduce a fairly wide debate on the important principle of whether or not what is now proposed is intended to be a permanent part of the Service, whether it is attempted to be a remedy for existing defects, a provision against certain economic difficulties, with a full and honest intention of going forward again to the development of the Service after the war, or whether it is an attempt to hamstring the Service by imposing permanent charges which I regard as injurious. I said a year ago:
I say, in all seriousness, that whatever method anyone can suggest for reducing unnecessary consumption of medicines he must have the co-operation of the medical profession if he is to make it effective."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th April, 1951; Vol. 487, c. 237.]


I say that again. Even if the right hon. Gentleman succeeds in persuading Parliament to allow him to make charges for prescriptions, he will still need that co-operation. The charges for prescriptions which he proposes would be ineffective if they should lead to any kind of incentive to doctors to be over-generous in order to shelter their poorer patients from the effect of the charge. That co-operation for which I appealed a year ago has been forthcoming in a growing degree. At all points and in every way it is not as good as one might desire, but it has been improved, and I want to know from the right hon. Gentleman whether the project of a prescriber's bulletin, which was being discussed when I was Minister, has now come to fruition, and whether such a bulletin will shortly be issued.

Mr. Crookshank: I am quite prepared to answer, of course, but I wonder how far this is relevant to the Clause. The Clause deals with prescriptions and appliances as part of the hospital service and with out-patients of hospitals. Therefore, I am not at all sure that questions about prescribers' bulletins come into this. We are not discussing the whole field of medical service, but just a part of it.

Mr. Marquand: The prescribers' bulletin, if it is issued, would be of value to those who prescribe within the hospitals just as much as to those who prescribe outside them. I understand that good progress has been made and I merely wish to know whether we may expect that prescribers' bulletin at an early date.
I am confident that the issue, with the full co-operation of the British Medical Association, of a prescribers' bulletin, guiding doctors through the intermediation of their own professional body, and not merely by what might look like an ipse dixit or dictation from the Ministry of Health, should be a very fruitful means of ensuring the utmost economy without injury to the patient, which, we all know, is possible. That sort of guidance would be going out to the dispensers in the hospitals as well as to the general practitioners.
I certainly think that the opportunity lies ready to the right hon. Gentleman's hand if he will take it. It would be out of order for me to refer in detail now

to the discussions which I had with the British Medical Association. I quote, however, from the British Medical Association Journal:
The Committee gave an assurance that it would be the aim of its representatives … to work harmoniously with a desire to provide the best possible service for the public and make possible a better and happier atmosphere among the doctors who take part in it.
With that went a good understanding between us that there would be a strong effort to reduce the size of the drug bill.
This is the question which I have to put to the right hon. Gentleman. Does he believe that it is still possible, by his methods of co-operation with the medical profession, to reduce the drug bill and to prevent by means of this kind the waste which, he says, exists? Does he intend to pursue these things with vigour? If he does, is he not prepared to say that he will allow the Bill to run for a period of two years, during which he can pursue methods of economy of this kind, and then come back to the House again and render a report of his activities? That is the purpose of the Amendment. It would give him the chance in April, 1954, to report on efforts to economise, as well as on the success or otherwise—the incidence upon the people—of the charges that he proposes in the Bill.
The date we have chosen because it is the one which went with the 1951 Act. If the whole thing came to an end in April, 1954, the nation could hold a grand inquest upon the National Health Service. I use the word "inquest" in the sense of that famous phrase, and not, of course, in the medical or forensic sense. We could hold a great public inquiry into the condition of the Service. A report might, perhaps be published by the right hon. Gentleman, or by whoever is in office at that time, surveying the whole thing.
It would be a good time to look at the Service again. It would be six years old, and it would be reasonable to review it in a comprehensive way and to have a great debate, not merely in Parliament, but in the newspapers, on the radio and by all the methods of modern publicity, so that the whole nation could participate and be better educated in what the Service really does, what it really costs and whether the effect of the various Measures


which have been passed amending the Act since it was originally introduced have been good or bad.
Finally, I ask the right hon. Gentleman: Does he believe in a comprehensive Health Service for the whole nation, available in proportion to need and not to private wealth? If so, if he would accept that ideal which we hold on this side of the House, he would be bound to accept the Amendment. In that way he would be publicly declaring that these things are emergency measures, that they are justified by the need to economise in Government expenditure and justified because at present various measures of economy which I have in mind cannot be brought fully into operation and which, in the long run, are not the sort of things that I should like to see.
I should like to put an end to this kind of thing. I should like to go back to the ideal of a comprehensive, widely embracing National Health Service, satisfying the whole people on the basis of their needs. If the right hon. Gentleman will do that, then indeed we may be led to believe what the Conservative Party so frequently said in their Election propaganda about the Health Service.

Mr. Enoch Powell: The right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand), who proposed the Amendment, finds himself in a very piquant situation. The wording of the Amendment is almost identical with the operative parts of Section 5 of the National Health Service Act, 1951, the Bill for which he himself presented to the House. The interesting fact is that that Clause was not in the Bill as originally presented by him. It was introduced upon Report stage in deference to views expressed on the benches behind him. Anything, therefore, that he may say regarding my right hon. Friend's doubts for the future, his fear that these charges might have to be permanent, and the doubt whether compensatory economies can in fact be made elsewhere in the Service, recoils upon the right hon. Gentleman.
The right hon. Gentleman came down to the House a year ago and presented a National Health Service Bill in which charges comparable with those in the present Bill were embodied, without any

qualification, proviso or terminal date whatsoever. He, therefore, is the last person who ought to get up in the Committee and complain now that there is no proviso in the present Bill.

Mr. Marquand: The hon. Member will, I hope, do me the honour of remarking that in my Second Reading speech, said that the Measure was not intended to be permanent.

Mr. Powell: Of course. No Acts of Parliament can be permanent. There is no such thing. [Interruption.] It may be that hon. Members opposite are not aware of the constitutional principle that Parliament cannot bind itself. Nothing which is written into any Act of Parliament is incapable of revision. The whole question, therefore, as to whether the charges in the Bill are permanent or temporary is a matter of shadow fighting; but if the absence of a terminal date from the Bill implies an intention on the part of the Government to maintain the charges in perpetuity, that complaint falls equally upon the right hon. Gentleman himself.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Marquand: I am sorry if I did say that the Act was not intended to be permanent. That, of course, would be too obvious to be said at all, but what I did say in introducing the Second Reading of the Bill was that these charges need not be regarded as a permanent part of the National Health Service.

Mr. Powell: If the right hon. Gentleman felt that about the charges he imposed last year and nevertheless did not write a proviso of that sort into his Bill but was only driven to do so by pressure, there is no reason for him to complain of my right hon. Friend not following suit. My right hon. Friend is not in the same kind of difficulty as the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East, was.

Dr. Stross: The hon. Member has made a very clear statement as to the effect we on these benches were able to have on our own Minister. We are waiting with great anxiety to see what effect the hon. Member and his colleagues will have on their Minister.

Mr. Powell: I think the hon. Member will be interested if I remind him of what I think was the best comment made upon the proposed Amendment as it stands in


the 1951 Act. It was made by the hon. Member for Ayrshire, South (Mr. Emrys Hughes), whose absence from the service of the House we all deplore, although compensatory advantages may be accruing elsewhere. Referring to the provisions it is now proposed to move into this Bill, he said:
I am quite convinced that from these benches will come the very definite statement that this Clause was one of the most stupid and badly thought out Clauses ever put into a piece of legislation by a Labour Government.
It is that very wording which the right hon. Gentleman is now trying to move into my right hon. Friend's Bill.
The fact is that this Amendment, as my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) remarked last year,
does not mean anything one way or the other and might just as well be added to the Bill as left out."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th May, 1951; Vol. 487, c. 1622–7.]
Later on I shall show reasons why in the case of the present Bill it would be actually harmful to import these words. The fact that the Amendment then made to the 1951 Bill was nugatory and useless is illustrated by the fact that it is to be removed from the Statute Book by the present Bill. There is no possible point in fixing a period of time in a Bill of this kind when at any time from year to year the Minister of Health can come to Parliament with an amending Bill and, even without coming to Parliament, can modify the regulations he makes, or not make any regulations at all.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Surely the hon. Member will agree that with that provision in the Bill it does at least enforce the reopening of the whole issue at the period stated in the Bill, which is not required of the Minister if that provision is not inserted.

Mr. Powell: On the contrary, the hon. Member knows perfectly well that the Government would have no serious difficulty in obtaining an affirmative Resolution to an extension by Order in Council as provided in an Amendment which perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be moving at a later stage. There is, in fact, no need under his Amendment for the matter to be reopened. Similarly, there is no reason without this Amendment why the matter should not, if necessary, be reopened sooner.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Surely the hon. Member will agree, as indeed he and many of his hon. Friends have argued in the past, that an affirmative Resolution does provide that there shall be an opportunity of debate in the House which is not available in another way.

Mr. Powell: Certainly, if the modification had not taken place before the date mentioned in the Amendment, then an affirmative Resolution would be necessary; but there is no reasonable doubt that as long as a Government remains in power it can get an affirmative Resolution and therefore the charges, if still desired, can continue.
There is a stronger and slightly different reason why the date should not be inserted to which I now come. I want to emphasise that all the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman to the effect that it might be possible in due course either to dispense with these charges, or to reduce them, or to replace them by others, are irrelevant to the point the Committee are considering.
The Committee are not considering at the moment whether or how soon modifications might be possible. The Committee are only considering the expediency of writing into this Bill what purports to be, although in fact it is not, a terminal date. I believe there are strong reasons of public policy why that date should not be inserted. Last year the right hon. Gentleman was pressed to insert the date 1953 in his Act of 1951, and he objected to doing that because people, believing that the operation of the Act would only be for two years, would hold off from availing themselves of the services.
Exactly the same argument applies against writing the date 1954 into this Bill of 1952. Very harmful consequences would follow to public health from the misunderstanding, which the public would gain and which it is the object of hon. and right hon. Members opposite to instill, of what was meant by the date in the Bill. Patients who required, or thought they required, treatment under the National Health Service would be tempted by such a proviso to hold back from month to month and year to year on the chance that they might thereby eventually escape the incidence of the charge.

Mr. Messer: Does the hon. Member really believe that patients read an Act of Parliament?

Mr. Powell: I can only say that this consideration was in the mind of the Government of last year who declined to write 1953 into their Act a year ago precisely on the ground that it would induce patients to hold off from availing themselves of the Service.

Dr. Horace King: rose—

Mr. Powell: I have given way a great deal. I think that I might be allowed to continue. To hold out at present the suggestion that in two years' time this Measure will come to an end—because that would undoubtedly be the impression which would be given—would be to sabotage many of the benefits of the National Health Service. One of the great features of the National Health Service—and I believe this Bill strengthens instead of weakening that feature—is that it induces the patient to obtain treatment and advice. That effect of the National Health Service would be partially negatived in my submission by writing an assumed terminal date into the Clause. I hope, therefore, that my right hon. Friend will resist this Amendment.

Mr. Messer: I have been very interested in the last speech. It follows so closely speeches we hear to the effect that "This Amendment does not mean anything at all and, therefore, I am going to oppose it for all I am worth." I cannot quite understand that reasoning. If it is true that the Amendment does not mean anything, I take it that the Minister will be prepared to accept it.
I want to put forward some reasons why I support Amendment. To me it is a very sad day when we have to destroy what I believe to be the most important element in the National Health Service. For the National Health Service to be a success, I think it has to have three very important factors. The first is that it has to be comprehensive—that it has to include everybody and that nobody shall be deterred from getting its benefits. It may happen that the cost of the Service is such that the country has to consider just how it can afford to give everyone those benefits and an argument is thought out for temporarily imposing

an obligation on the patient. I think that is true.
It is no use our refusing to face the fact that £400 million is a lot of money. Indeed, one of the reasons why I think financing the Service is wrong is that it provides too big a target for any Chancellor, whether he be on this side of the Committee or that. It would be felt that a figure of £400 million must provide means whereby there should be some reduction. Why I support this Amendment is that it does at least tell the world that it is temporary; it is for a period. We are not making permanent, as a feature of this Service, payment by that section of the community which can perhaps least afford it.
Why I believe the period laid down is right is because I think that within those two years there will be given an opportunity for investigating the whole of the Service to see where economies can be effected. I want to be honest. I think there ought to be economies in the Service. There is a measure of irresponsibility. There is no disguising the fact that money is being spent which ought not to be spent. I do not say it is the fault of individuals, in every instance. But I give this fact, and it is a fact, that on the general practitioners' lists in Middlesex there are a larger number of patients than there are people in the county. The lists are in excess of the population.
That is not the fault of the general practitioners. Some of us know the reasons for the double-listing of certain patients. But there is a field there for investigation. The doctors themselves do not want it. They cannot help it. It would be wrong to criticise the general practitioner service because we have instances like that. But in those two years we can have an inquiry into the machine.
Let us take the example of the hospital service. That service costs about £250 million out of the £400 million, and everyone will think at once that here is a field for economy. But where shall we look for the economy? Ought we to look to the patients for it, or ought not we to have some regard to the administration? I am convinced that in the field of administration there is an opportunity for discovering where there is a waste of money.
It is not intentional. Nobody wants it. It is due to the structure of the Service which by its incidence prevents that real economy and the saving of money which could be brought about. May I refer, although I do not want to go too much into what has been done, to the centralisation of buying? May I be forgiven for a personal reference? I was chairman of a very big health committee, and what we did when we wanted to buy was not to go to the dealers. We went to the potteries and got the potteries to make the crockery for our hospital services, which covered a population of two million.
We went into Lancashire and got the textiles we required. We went to Sheffield and got the cutlery. We were able to buy cheaply because we were able to do central buying. I am not saying that some of that is not being done, but it is a very gradual process. As has been stated, the Ministry itself has centralised certain things which have resulted in big economies. Why cannot we go on with that investigation for a period of two years? At the end of that time I am certain that we should be enabled to exercise a measure of control.
We knew from the beginning that this was an experiment. Nothing like it had been attempted before. I remember when a delegation from the United States of America came over here and were inquiring into the working of this Service. They expressed surprise that we should have attempted anything of the sort. It will not be a popular thing to introduce in America. But they were surprised that we had been able to tackle this thing and, in the short period it had existed, to have done as much as we have done.
5.45 p.m.
I do not want to make a Second Reading speech, but I do want to argue in favour of there being a term to this particular aspect of payment by patients. There surely are two things—perhaps one of two things, or perhaps two things—which we have to examine. What is the purpose of the Bill? Is it to deter, or is it to save money? Is there the assumption that there are people getting treatment when they do not want it? People do not go into hospital for fun. People do not go to the doctor just because they like the look of the doctor, or think that the doctor might

like the look of them. People do not go for the Service for any other reason than because they need it.
If therefore they are deterred from going to the doctor, that will be attended with very sad consequences for them. In connection with a later Amendment which we have down, I wish to refer to some of the serious aspects of that deterrent. If there is one thing that this Service has done so far, it is to fling wide open the doors which were closed against the wives of insured people. What we are doing in this Bill, and surely we ought not to continue it for more than two years, is to make insured people pay for prescriptions which they never paid for before.
We are going back; for years ago it was laid down that there were certain types of cases which could get their treatment free. We have seen advertised on the hoardings and in our newspapers inducements to people to have treatment, because what they were suffering from was not merely something which was medically wrong with them but something which was a social problem too. We are going back, because we are deterring those very people whom, for their own safety as well as the safety of the community, we want to induce to have treatment.
I suggest that hon. Members opposite, those who are supporting the Government, really want to provide a service that will give all the facilities the rich man can have to those who are not rich. Strangely enough, we shall find that the victims of this penalising will not be the very poor. They will easily be able to get these prescriptions, to get these appliances, paid for by the National Assistance Board. Those who are rich will have no trouble, but there are the people, a very big strata, who will not go to the National Assistance Board, but who cannot afford to pay. They will not get the treatment. They will be deterred.
It may well be inevitable, because the nation comes first, that we may not be able to give treatment to all who need it. If that is the case then let us limit the period to two years; so that at the end of that time, by examination of this service which really needs examination, we shall be able to find a system whereby


we can give these people not merely what they need, but what is their due.
Health is not merely a question of the individual. It is not merely a question of one's feelings. It has an economic value, and the nation cannot afford not to give the people the treatment they need at the time when they need it.

Sir Ralph Glyn: I should like to say something about the speech of the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Messer). The hon. Gentleman and I have been in the House a very long time, and all of us know the great contribution which he has made to the Health Service in the country and the personal efforts which he has made. Therefore, any contribution which the hon. Member makes to a debate of this sort is one to which we should all pay attention.
I want to say one thing about this Bill and what I feel about it. It has been distressing to me to hear from very many hon. Members on the other side that they assume that we on this side are opposed to the National Health Service. We are not, but, as the hon. Gentleman opposite has just said, there are undoubtedly flaws in what was a very great experiment, and it was inevitable that there should have been such flaws.
I do beg the Committee to realise that some of us do not want to make this a party matter. It is a national matter. We are dealing with the health of the whole of the people of the country, and I very much regret that in all these debates the party spirit has been brought in. I certainly do not want to add any fuel to those flames, because I think that we are being judged in the country today in a way that a great many of us do not quite appreciate.
I think that the people up and down the country are watching the House of Commons and wondering what we are doing. I think that our performance is not altogether up to their expectations. [An HON. MEMBER: "You are telling us."] Well, I am telling everybody, and all I want to say about the speech to which we have just listened is that it contained a great deal to which we should pay attention.
My own feeling is that we shall not cure the evils of the Health Service on

party lines, and that we are only going to cure them by all working together for the benefit of the country as a whole, and in trying to do something to make this Service better. Some of us, when the Beveridge Report was first published, risked a good deal on our side to support it. We did that in previous Parliaments, and I do not regret it for a moment, but I do regret most bitterly the way in which we seem to be falling down and getting into bitter party controversy on a subject which ought not to be concerned with party at all.
I do not want to say anything more, except that I do plead with both sides not to continue to put party in front of what is a great national necessity. Do not let us run any risks of falling back on what has been a great experiment, which, if we remove its present blemishes, will be supported by everyone, irrespective of party, in the whole country.

Mr. J. Grimond: I should like to join in what has just been said by the hon. Baronet the Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) about the last speech to which we listened from this side of the Committee. The hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Messer) speaks with great authority on the social services, and I should like to support his main plea, which, as I understood it, was that the primary task at present was a full review of the National Health Service.
The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) drew attention to two objections which he had to this Amendment. He argued in the first place, that it is nugatory. That is certainly technically true, but I am not certain that it is therefore necessarily useless. Secondly, he referred to a more substantial objection, that it will encourage people to delay necessary treatment. That will only become a serious matter, as I think the hon. Gentleman would agree, in the last few months, when the Act is in danger of running out.

Mr. Powell: If the hon. Gentleman bears in mind that this Clause covers such things as appliances, abdominal trusses and so on, he will realise that a person could go on putting off getting the appliance, not only for weeks but for months, because of the idea that he might eventually get it free or at a much lower charge?

Mr. Grimond: I do not want to labour the point. There are certain appliances


the acquisition of which may be put off year after year, but I do not think it likely that people will do that from the majority of cases that will fall under the Act.
What I should like to ask the Minister is whether he can give the Committee some assurance that the Government are going to take steps to put in hand this review, which will, I think, almost inevitably mean a new Act long before 1954. I think that this is the appropriate moment when we are bound to ask the Government for some indication of what their thinking is.
The present position, as I follow it, is that a rough and arbitrary ceiling was imposed on the Health Service and upon other things in the days of Sir Stafford Cripps, and it has often been pointed out that that ceiling came on at a particular moment because of our financial position and that it was fixed with very little relevance to the needs of the Service, or, probably, very little consideration of how much money we might need for health, how much for education and so on.
In the last two years, there have been considerable changes in the form of the Service to keep within that ceiling, and, as was pointed out in the debate last year, it is now no longer a free Service, because there are charges.
Some people think, and with good reason, that that is a very important new principle. I myself feel—and I also agree with the last speaker that this was probably inevitable—that we cannot face the continual rise in the cost of the Service. It would get quite out of proportion with the other social services, and would place a greater burden on the country than it ought to bear.
Charges are being imposed primarily for financial reasons, whether good or bad. I do not want to argue that point at the moment, but these charges are part of the campaign to make the country realise how important it is to take the situation in hand and begin in a new direction in regard to finance. There are other reasons, too. It has been suggested by the hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain MacLeod) that certain of the charges will have the effect of helping the school dental service. But the financial argument is paramount.
The fact that we are making these cuts, to some of which I object, nevertheless

is no reason for putting off indefinitely the review of this Service. It is not a reason for failing to give attention to what are the real priorities of the Service and considering such matters as capitation fees, rates of contributions and a whole series of other matters which do deserve consideration.
It may be that the Minister objects to putting this date into the Bill. I do not know what he will say about it, but I hope he will give us some idea of what the policy of the Government will be in the next two years, and whether we are to have these reviews of the service as suggested by many hon. Members.

Mr. Blenkinsop: I think we all support the appeal made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Messer), to whom we all listened with great interest, when he asked us to consider this matter dispassionately and weigh up the rights and wrongs of expenditure upon health.
I think it would only be fair to say that the Government must have known that bringing forward a Measure of this character would be bound to arouse very strong feelings indeed, not only on this side but throughout the country. That became evident during the last few weeks in which the proposals of the Government were made manifest. I do not think it lies in the mouth of anyone on the opposite side to complain about what are essentially, in our view, political proposals, which are being attacked for that very reason.
6.0 p.m.
During the course of the Second Reading debate and of this debate we have heard various statements made about these proposals and charges that leave us in a very great deal of doubt whether they are put forward purely or mainly upon temporary financial grounds or whether they are part, as appears to be the view of the hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain MacLeod), of that wide review referred to by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond). It is of vital importance to us in this Committee that we should know the mind of the Government on this matter.
Obviously we can take one view of these proposals if they are put forward as part of a plan, rightly or wrongly, to deal with a temporary financial difficulty,


which we all hope will be of short duration, and to help deal with the problem of the burden of re-armament. But if that is the reason we should know that that is so. If it is for that purpose then surely there can be no possible reason why a date such as is suggested in this Amendment should not be put to the proposal.
On the other hand, we have had both from the Minister of Health and the hon. Member for Enfield, West, arguments which relate to these proposals as part of a permanent new direction, which means nothing less than a revolution, a complete change, not merely in detail but in the scheme as a whole. Surely it means, and I think the hon. Member for Enfield, West, regards it as such, a new direction and a new principle to be established in the Health Service.
The hon. Member for Enfield, West, who spoke on this matter on Second Reading, started by defending the proposals as a temporary financial measure, and he adduced reasons why he thought this charge was necessary, just as it was claimed a year ago that the charges imposed by the then Government were imposed then for the same reason—because of a temporary financial difficulty, which presumably would be covered by putting a term of years to these proposals.
But he went on to argue on wholly different lines. He went on to develop arguments we have read with interest in pamphlets and other documents which he has provided for us—or perhaps not specially for us on this side of the Committee but for hon. Members generally—and which argue the case for a wholly different basis for a Health Service. If it is right that that should be argued, it is important that we should understand that we are taking part in that argument. I believe, with my right hon. Friend the former Minister of Health, that one of the important matters when considering this subject on its temporary financial basis is to see what other action is being taken by the Ministry to try and meet proper complaints of abuse from time to time.
My right hon. Friend has mentioned certain proposals which have been put forward and on which, I understand, action is being taken. In that connection

the hon. Member for Enfield, West, said in his previous speech that there was something peculiar in the fact that the Cohen Committee was appointed before proposals for prescription charges were introduced in the House of Commons in 1949. He seemed to claim that that destroyed arguments put from this side. Of course it was appointed before prescription charges were mooted in 1949, but there was some time before one could find whether that Committee was likely to offer some fairly concrete and useful proposals that would help tackle this problem.
It became clear that it might be some considerable time, perhaps two years, before it would be possible to have the benefit of many proposals the Cohen Committee were making. It was evident that they had valuable proposals drawn up which, when fully in operation, would provide enormous benefit in procuring control, in particular over the prescribing field. Surely it is another argument why the proposals in this Bill should be limited to a period of not more than two years that there are these other proposals, which are undoubtedly of long-term consideration and which, in our view, are a much more valuable and much less dangerous way of effecting the economies we all agree to be necessary.
If is, of course, also important that at the same time we should do our best to ensure that the medical practitioners and those who are working in the hospitals to which this Amendment particularly refers should know much more than they appear to do at present about the cost of the prescriptions they prescribe. I am glad that a start has been made in making that information available. It is important that that arrangement should have an opportunity of working. That opportunity will not be granted if this Bill goes forward as it stands.
Mention has been made in the last few speeches of the hopes expressed by the hon. Member for Enfield, West, and the Minister, and others, that these proposals could be argued for on the grounds that they can provide some permanent value by transferring dentists from the treatment of adult persons to the treatment of children in the school clinics and in other ways. But that is a particularly futile suggestion when one remembers that at


the same time the Chancellor of the Exchequer is requiring the right hon. Lady the Minister of Education to cut down on the Education Estimates, requiring local authorities, if not actually, to cut down the number of school dentists at least to limit the expansion of their number.
Therefore, it is quite ridiculous to talk as though it were going to be possible to make the transfer that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health and the hon. Member for Enfield, West, talk about. It is quite absurd to talk about it when just a few seats along the Government Front Bench one of the right hon. Gentleman's right hon. Friends is taking measures to ensure that it cannot work.
I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to say whether he has an assurance that his right hon. Friend the Minister of Education can give a guarantee that all the extra places for school dentists can be provided under the financial provisions that are available to her. This is a perfectly valid point if we are discussing here whether these provisions ought to be of a temporary or a permanent character.

Mr. Baird: Does my hon. Friend not also agree that if the Government are to attract dentists from the public service to the school service, they will have to pay them more?

Mr. Blenkinsop: I agree with my hon. Friend. Whichever way one looks at it, the argument is fallacious, because either the transfer will not take place or, if provision is being made for it, there will be no financial saving. But the hon. Member for Enfield, West has put forward the argument that he believes in these charges as a permanent contribution to the re-direction of the Health Service as a whole. I am sure he believes that quite sincerely. He believes it is wrong to have a free Health Service. He thinks it is right to introduce charges of one form or another generally throughout the Service, and indeed throughout other services as well. He is perfectly entitled to put forward that view. We are entitled to know whether the fact that this is a permanent proposal means that he has convinced the Government Front Bench of that point of view. Does this proposal mean that the Minister accepts the view of his hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, West that there should be this

comprehensive charge in the whole direction and principle of the Health Service, and that in future it should be a service of which charges are a necessary and a general part?
If so, it makes perfectly clear the division that lies between the two sides of this Committee. It makes it perfectly clear that while a year ago we found it necessary to impose temporary charges where we felt they would have the least evil effect, and on good medical advice, too—but which we always regarded as undesirable except for their temporary nature—now we are presented with proposals which envisage a gradual increase in charges over the whole field of the Health Service. Not only that, it suggests that it is a principle which would be worthy of extension to other fields.
On this side of the Committee we have never taken the view that there is no limit to the expenditure upon the Health Service. There must be. In fact, it is inevitable, if we accept the need for the planning of our economy, that the proportion we can make available to our Health Service must be related to the whole. In my view, however, it must be related to the national income. It cannot be argued about in the void without relation to other factors. It certainly cannot be argued about without relation to the change in the value of money. It certainly cannot be argued about without relation to the gradual increase in our national income which, at any rate, was taking place until a few months ago.
We need to have a general review of our Health Service but, instead of arguing about the extravagance of a specific figure without relating it to any other fact, we should know just what we are relating it to. We must make up our minds what we believe to be the proper proportion of our national income that we can set aside for our Health Service.
We have always accepted that there must be some limitation. That is why we have had to delay many projects which we have all wanted to go forward with in the Service. My hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham knows which they are probably better than anybody else here. He knows how often it has been our unhappy job to hold back on demands made upon us. There are so many services that could be regarded as a useful contribution to the health of the


country which we have had to put off because we did not believe we could extend expenditure indefinitely.
6.15 p.m.
Therefore, it is not a question of our suggesting at any time that there was an unlimited field for expansion for the National Health Service against every other service. We must look at this matter on grounds of social need and on medical advice, and not assess our limitations upon an individual financial decision which will inevitably mean leaving out so many of the population whose needs are the greatest of all. When we think in terms of the proportion of our national income, it is wise to remind ourselves that in this country, so far from being extravagant on health, we spend a much much smaller proportion of our national income on health than does the United States. That is the advice of a reasonably authoritative survey reported on in "The Lancet" of an issue or two ago. Therefore, we must get our comparisons right.
As an example of the limitation we have always accepted, we thought it necessary to provide wheel chairs free under the service for those most severely disabled. They are covered in the Clause to which we have moved this Amendment. Cars as well as wheel chairs in some cases are made available free to those most severely disabled. If hon. Members opposite have their way, at a later stage no doubt they will provided for a charge as a proper means of deciding who should have a chair and who should not have one. The right hon. Gentleman says he will not do it at moment, but he is providing for it in the Bill.

The Temporary Chairman (Colonel Sir Leonard Ropier): Order. A discussion on wheel chairs is already provided for on the Order Paper, since there is an Amendment down later on. I have no desire to curtail discussion, but the hon. Member is getting a little wide of the Amendment at the moment.

Mr. Blenkinsop: I agree it is more desirable that we should discuss it in detail later, but I wanted to emphasise that we accept the need for limitation of expenditure, but that we have tried to limit it by restricting the availability to

certain medical categories and not doing it in general by imposing charges. However, I will leave the point there.
We are entitled to a clear statement from the right hon. Gentleman as to whether or not he proposes, by making this a permanent charge, to envisage a change in the basis of our National Health Service. If so, then it makes clear not only the position of my hon. Friends on these benches with regard to all these proposals, but also of masses of our people who, particularly at this time, would regard this as a vicious imposition upon their cost of living, and a vicious change in what they have a right to expect from the Government of this country as a consideration for the most vital and essential needs of their health. If, as a result of this Measure, the Government bring down upon themselves not only the detailed and vigorous opposition of this side of the Committee, as they will, but also a great deal of unrest in the country, they have only themselves to thank.

Mr. Hugh Linstead: We can all contribute most to the utility of this discussion if we try to continue it in the spirit introduced by the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Messer) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn). The bulk of us here are anxious to make the best possible Health Service we can in the interests of the sick and the poorer classes of the community in this country in the light of our financial responsibilities.
The real difference between, not entirely the two sides of the House, but, unfortunately, virtually that, is that there are some of us who put as the first priority at the present time our re-armament responsibilities, while there are others who, for reasons we can perfectly appreciate, put as the first priority the social services. When there is a clash of those two points of view it is possible for discussion to go on for a very long time without an appearance of the agreement and good will which I believe is present among most of us on both sides of the Committee.
My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain MacLeod), was charged by the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop), with having gone too far in his advocacy of some charges being an essential feature of our social services. I am one of those


who believe that we should move as and when we can towards the conception of a free Health Service; but I should like to say—though not in defence of my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, West, who does not need defending by me—that we are in danger, in the Health Service in particular, of forgetting one very fundamental thing. That is, that no State can take away from an individual the responsibility for his own health.
There is a very great danger that in our desire to spread our social services in every quarter we will make that fundamental mistake. I think most of us take it for granted that the State is greatly concerned with the health of the individual and must of necessity be so; but the State may make a great mistake if it so emphasises the freedom and extent of its services as to take away from the individual man that sense of responsibility.
The hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East, urged very strongly that we should declare where we stood on the question of the temporary nature of the various charges of this kind. He and his hon. Friends should bear in mind that there is a very grave danger, which we must all appreciate, of the social services and their benefits becoming bargaining counters in the political game. In the long run, if that does happen, first of all Parliament suffers, and second, the beneficiaries suffer. I think we noticed in the Second Reading debate a tendency for this question to become merely a bargaining counter in the political game. I do not think that the Government would be justified in putting a two-year period into this Clause at the present time. I do not believe that they or anybody else in this Committee is entitled to say "We are certain that in two years' time we shall be out of our financial crisis."

Mr. Turner-Samuels: Would the hon. Gentleman say who are the beneficiaries under this Bill?

Mr. Linstead: That interruption lacks the usual perspicacity which we associate with the hon. and learned Member. I was not referring to the beneficiaries under this Bill. The hon. Gentleman introduced the phrase. I was referring to the beneficiaries under the social services generally.

Mr. Turner-Samuels: The hon. Member did not say so. He said "this Bill" That was the term he used.

Mr. Linstead: If I did I will correct myself. The hon. Gentleman will see it in HANSARD tomorrow. The other point which the Committee needs to bear in mind—because there is a danger of it becoming lost in the discussion—is the fact that this year we are spending on the Health Service £20 million more than we were spending in any previous year. That is one of the substantial justifications for these charges. However much they are disliked, there are, as I pointed out in the Second Reading debate, parts of the Health Service which have a greater need of expenditure than others, and one of the advantages which these charges are going to bring with them, however much we may regret them, is that we can divert some of our resources to the hospital service, which is in greater need of finance than the general practitioners' service.
One of the most important things that the Committee—particularly hon. Members opposite—can do is to try to help those who are responsible for this legislation to make the inevitable incidence of the charges fall where it can best be borne. We shall face that as a very real problem a little later, when we discuss certain classes of beneficiaries whom everybody would like to relieve from the obligation to make these payments.
One of the biggest contributions which could be made by hon. Members opposite is to show how we can, as we put this Bill into operation, ensure that need is the test whereby these charges are remitted and not necessarily the chance of a particular man coming into a particular classification. I should like to see a number of groups of people, such as those suffering from tuberculosis or diabetes, excluded from the incidence of these charges, but I cannot see how that can be done if we are to make the scheme work. If hon. Members opposite can show how that can be done it will be one of the most important contributions that they can make to this Bill.

Dr. King: It must be very difficult to convey to hon. Members of the calibre of the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Linstead)—of whose excellent and devoted work for the National Health


Service every hon. Member knows—just how bitterly we on this side of the Committee are opposed to the proposals contained in this Bill. Listening to the hon. Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn), who lamented that party politics should come into this, it seemed to me that the whole tenor of his appeal for a non-party approach to the Bill was really in support of this Amendment which asks, first, that if the shilling charge and the charge for appliances is a non-party charge, if this is a matter of scientific as opposed to party political opinion, we should try it as an experiment and see at the end of two years what the result has been.
The hon. Member for Putney might very well have ended his speech by pleading with his own Government to accept this Amendment. It is a party decision that we should impose charges on the Health Service as a means of solving some of the problems with which we are confronted. I want to preface my remarks about this Amendment by attempting to convey to Her Majesty's Government something of the spirit in which we are tackling not only this Amendment but every other Amendment to this Bill.
It is a matter of simple fact that 14 million voters are opposed to any tampering with the National Health Service. It is probably true that day by day that number is increasing among people who now realise, after voting for the present Government, that attacks are being made on the Health Service.
6.30 p.m.
We cannot hope in the House of Commons to prevent the Bill being passed, but we shall seek by Amendment after Amendment to limit the extent of the damage which the Bill will do to the National Health Service; and if by this Amendment we can limit it for two years, we shall have done something worth while.
It may be argued by some of my hon. Friends that this Amendment is not necessary. Not only Members on this side of the Committee, but people in the country, are saying that the Government will not last until 1954. Perhaps, even as we are speaking, the first nail has been driven into their coffin in the first instalment of local government elections. Thousands of Londoners are walking into

the polling booths to declare their opposition to any tampering with the Health Service. And as the Government may not live until 1954, and as a Labour Government will certainly repeal the Bill if it is passed, it is academic to limit it to two years. I think that such an argument is unsound.
It is possible that the Government may last until after 1954. If we are to overthrow the Government, we depend during the next two years on Members like the hon. Member for Putney becoming alarmed at what happens to the Health Service and on their supporting us in our resistance to further attacks upon it. I am afraid that is not likely.
Defeats in by-elections can only come if by-elections take place in marginal constituencies. Whatever happens to public opinion outside the House of Commons—and it is the belief of many of us that the Government day by day are forfeiting the support of public opinion outside—it is quite possible, it is a grim possibility, that the Government may last beyond 1954.
I want to deal particularly with some of the remarks made on Second Reading by the hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain MacLeod) in a speech which was a brilliant and able performance. I do not want to deal with the polemical part of his speech but with an argument which, coming from the hon. Member, must be given serious attention. The hon. Member said that the Bill had social, medical and economic justification. He argued that the making of charges would stop abuses. Then he went on to say—I hope he will stop me if I paraphrase him wrongly—that already the charges made on teeth and spectacles had had a deterrent effect far beyond those which had been anticipated by the last Government.
Let me remind the House that already 1,000 dental mechanics have been dismissed, that opticians are facing something like the slump they experienced in the worst period between the wars. The hon. Member for Enfield, West, suggested in his speech that the deterrent effect of the charges already imposed on the National Health Service had been somewhere about 50 per cent.
He went on to argue that we should watch the deterrent effect of the charges imposed in the Bill and that if, as he


feared, the deterrent would be much greater than was imagined by the Government, we should seek at some stage to ease it and to deal with the cases of particular groups of poor people who had been deprived of medical aid. I suggest that the whole of that argument is an argument for putting a period to the Bill; and that at the end of 1954 we shall see, in the light of two years' experience, what many of us are convinced will happen: that the Bill, by imposing charges on medicines, drugs and appliances will deter some people from having medicine or appliances which they ought to have.
Moreover, the practical difficulties of administering the Bill will be very great. As the Bill makes its way through Committee, we shall be considering the difficulties that chemists are going to experience—and chemists have already said what difficulties they have to face. We shall have to examine the practical problem of whether doctors will have to collect the charge that is imposed by the Bill. Indeed, if the Bill gets through the Committee and finally takes its place on the Statute Book, we may find that, as the Labour Government anticipated, the administrative difficulties surrounding this little Bill will make its proposals either unworkable or too costly. Therefore, on that ground also we seek to limit the operation of the Bill to two years.
The Clause gives power to the Minister to make regulations far beyond any of the charges which the Minister has stated he proposes to make under the Bill. As long as the Bill remains part of the law, it will be in order for further Regulations beyond those which the Minister has promised to make to come before the House and to impose higher charges and affect appliances beyond the small list which the right hon. Gentleman has given. A Bill which confers such wide powers upon the Minister should be limited to two years.
In the days when we on this side of the Committee were sitting on the benches opposite, when some of us managed to secure a similar concession from the previous Government, it was argued by the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) that this was a concession not of very great moment, that it might just as well be added to the Bill as be left out.

But in the last Parliament we took the view, and the then Government accepted our arguments, that it was right to limit the provisions of the Bill to a certain period, so that if the Government wished to continue to impose the charges they would have to come back to the House. It seems to me quite certain that if the Government last until 1954, they will command a much smaller majority in the House and may have to yield far more in the way of concessions to the Opposition.
It is also true that at the end of two years we shall have a mass of evidence, comparable to the evidence which the hon. Member for Enfield, West has produced about the effects of the dental and optical charges, of the deterrent effect of the charges on the use by people of medicine. At the same time, we are quite certain that by the end of another two years the pressure of public opinion, steadily growing against this Bill, will make the Government hesitate to re-impose the charges.
But most important of all of the reasons for this Amendment is that we want to ask the Government tonight about the way they react to this Amendment, and to say whether they believe in a free National Health Service or not. Is it the case of the Government, is it the case of the Minister, that they believe in a free medical service in principle, but not in a time of economic crisis? If so, we believe that the Minister should accept this Amendment.
The economic crisis, we hope, will not last for ever. We believe that the Minister should adopt the method of looking at the Health Service Act that his colleagues have adopted in looking at the 1944 Education Act. There, at least, the Government have said, "We believe in equal opportunity for everybody, even if we do not believe in it just now." The Conservative Party have advanced from 1931, when they opposed secondary education for all children, and when the then Minister of Education said that secondary education for all was providing "an intellectual soup kitchen." They have advanced, so far as education is concerned, in that the Government have given an assurance that they believe in equality of opportunity, and that they are going to advance education as soon as the economic situation permits.
We have the right to ask them tonight, Are they going on record as saying, "We believe in charges for medical services under the National Health Service Act, not for two years but for ever"? If the Government say that, the country has a right to know, that, according to the Minister and according to the Government, it is right to add £10 a week to the income of a doctor and charge an old age pensioner for a bottle of medicine; that it is right, under Tory principles, to charge a millionaire 1s. for expensive drugs and to charge poor children 1s. for a 1s. 1d. bottle of medicine; that it is right to single out the bald, the clubfooted, those with varicose veins, the tuberculous, the diabetics and the gastric, and say to them, "The prestige of this country demands that you should pay a fine for being guilty of the sin of illness in order to relieve the rich taxpayer of £1 a week Income Tax."
I believe—and I speak very sincerely about this, as one, incidentally, who owes his life to the National Health Service—that this is the meanest Bill this Government have brought forward. At least I would ask them to say on this Amendment, "We have put in operation something which may seem mean but is only an expedient. We do not want this to be taken as a principle for all time." If they do not accept this Amendment we have a right to say that the Government believe in the slogan, "A shilling a day keeps the doctor away." We have a right to say that the Government believe that charges under the Health Service are a part of permanent Tory policy.
I would urge the Government to take a very different line—to have some consideration for the thousands of members of their own party who have done invaluable service for the National Health Service up and down the country on hospital committees and health executives, and so on, and to say, "At any rate, if we impose these charges, we impose them for two years only, and at the end of two years we shall look at them again, go to the House of Commons, after two years' extra evidence, and either ask that the charges be re-imposed—when the whole matter can be discussed again—or drop them"—as we believe they ought to drop them.

6.45 p.m.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Harry Crookshank): The debate has covered a good deal of ground on what, I thought, was really a rather narrow point, because the substance of the Amendment is to put in a period during which this Clause should run. The Amendment suggests that it should be for only two years from 1st April. If the second Amendment which runs with this were carried, too, there would be a possibility of an annual extension. On that comparatively simple question the debate has ranged really very wide, and I have been asked a very great number of detailed questions about the present organisation of the Service, about some of the plans which my predecessor started when he was in office, and how they are getting on—in fact, many things which I should have liked to have been able to answer in far greater detail than I can tonight.
I will answer two questions the right hon. Gentleman asked me, because they were points in which he was personally very much interested. He asked me about the "Prescribers' Bulletin," which was one of the means by which doctors were going to be kept informed of the prices of drugs and appliances, and so on. He asked what had happened about that. I am glad to tell him that the first issue of that is out now. I myself saw the advance copy of it three weeks ago, and now it has gone into distribution. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has not got one yet, but I shall be very glad to send him one, and I am sure that it will be very useful for the purposes which he intended.

Dr. H. Morgan: Why not send every Member one?

Mr. Crookshank: I dare say that there would be no great difficulty about that, but I do not know that all would be interested in it. It is really for the benefit of prescribing doctors, which we do not all aspire to be. The second more specific point put to me was, What has gone on about the centralised purchasing of paper? The answer to that is that the centralised purchasing of certain forms of paper is to start on 1st July.
What does this Amendment seek to do? It seeks, as I say, to put the time limit of two years into this Bill, subject to extension. It is quite true that, if that were put in, it would bring the matter


into line with Section 5 of the Act of 1951. But it would not bring it into line with the Act with which it ought to be in line; because, after all, the only reason for this Clause that we have to discuss is that the Government—any Government: the Government composed of right hon. Gentlemen opposite might well have done it, as they took power to do it, as we do it now—the Government found, as any Government which decided to bring in a charge for doctors' prescriptions would have found, that there was no power taken in that Act to do the same thing with regard to out patients. And that is all that this Clause deals with—to bring the two into line.
I have no idea why it was not in the original Act—why this particular section of the patients for whom a charge might have been made were not included in the original Act. The fact remains that they were not. Therefore, any Government, whether of this side or of that side, which decided to put a charge on prescriptions would obviously, at least in our view, have to see that the same charge was put on in the case of prescriptions prescribed at hospitals for out-patients—not in-patients: they are not affected at all—for it would otherwise have been unfair, as between one citizen and another, that one paid and another did not because one went to a general practitioner and another as a hospital outpatient.

Dr. Edith Summerskill: That is entirely different, as I shall explain later.

Mr. Crookshank: If we are going to put a charge on general practitioners' prescriptions, then a similar charge must be put on in the case of the out-patients at hospitals.

Mr. Turner-Samuels: Is that not only one element? Is not the issue here that the legislation as it stands without this Bill is comprehensive, and that what this Bill will do is to make it no longer a comprehensive Service? The object of this Amendment is to put on a limit of two years in order that the position can be explored to see whether it is right to have this limitation upon the scheme; and if it is discovered to be working to the prejudice of the people who are intended to be served by the Service, then it will come to an end.

Mr. Crookshank: The usually acute mind of the hon. and learned Gentleman has not quite taken the point I was making. Under the law at present there is power, provided by himself and his hon. and right hon. Friends, by which a charge can be put upon doctors' prescriptions. That is the law now. This Clause seeks to assimilate to the condition of those people out-patients in hospitals. That is all the Clause seeks to do—

Mr. Turner-Samuels: rose—

Mr. Crookshank: Let me finish my sentence. It is true that the Act of 1951, which dealt with certain forms of appliance—that is to say dentures and spectacles—introduced words of this kind, but in the Act of 1949 there is no limit. Therefore we were faced with the problem of which of the two Socialist Acts we should follow. We could not follow both, because one put in the limit and one did not. We came to the conclusion that because this dealt with the same field as the Act of 1949—the power of putting on prescriptions—it was right, reasonable and sensible that the point which emerged during the debates of 1949, that there should be no limitation of time, should come into this Bill. That is what we decided to do, and that is why we did it.
When I am asked, "Does that therefore mean they are permanent and for ever?" I remind the Committee—though I cannot, of course, discuss it—that Clause 3 (1) makes it possible by Order in Council to vary the charges or, indeed, to direct that they should cease altogether. So the power is there, just as it is in the 1949 Act. That is what we are doing in this Clause, and that is all that this Clause and this Amendment are about.

Mr. Turner-Samuels: rose—

Mr. Crookshank: If the hon. and learned Gentleman does not agree with my interpretation of what I have read with my own eyes in this book of Public General Acts, he can expatiate on it afterwards. That is the narrow point with which we are concerned, as to whether the provisions of this Clause—this Clause, Clause 1; that is what it is proposed to amend—should last for two years or, as in the Act of 1949 which dealt with prescriptions, should have no specific time


limit in it. I would point out that there is in Clause 3 the power either to vary or to abolish the charge altogether by Order in Council.
That is really all that I think I am called upon to argue on this Amendment. A great many other observations were made at large on the general topic of the Health Service, and if we went on into that field we would very much prolong and extend the scope of the debate.

Mr. Michael Foot: Does the right hon. Gentleman not propose in his reply to answer the questions put by my hon. Friends as to whether he agrees with the whole interpretation placed by the hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain MacLeod), on the way in which the Act is to be run in future? It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to say that this is a narrow point, but with great respect to him, and with greater respect to the Chair, these questions were allowed to be put from this side. Are we to have no answer from the Minister to these questions?

Mr. Crookshank: It is strange how impatient hon. Gentlemen opposite are. They never allow me to get through more than two sentences of any speech I set out to make, whereas if I ever interrupt one of them there is the most scandalised cry as if I were the most disorderly person in the Committee.
The real question—if I may just be allowed to say this—which Gentlemen opposite have been trying to pose, and trying to put the Government into a real dilemma about, was whether this was a form of permanent charge, and whether it really alters the whole basis of the Service. I do not see why anybody should assume anything of the sort. It was the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop), who, in asking the question whether we believed the charges were to be permanent, said himself that there must be a limit to the cost of the Health Service. That is the answer. He said it must be related to the national income, and went on to say that his party had always accepted that.

Mr. Blenkinsop: rose—

Mr. Crookshank: The hon. Gentleman has already made a long speech and, as I have said, I should like to have two sentences to myself. According to him, his friends have always accepted that there must be a limit to the cost of the Health Service and that it must be related to the national income. That, if I may say so, is the whole basis of this Bill. We find ourselves in this great national emergency, and the Bill is one of the means by which we are trying to help rectify the home sector of the emergency.
I quite agree with the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand), who said that he did not accept the argument of internal finance as affecting this problem, in view of the large surplus at the end of last year; but that is not relevant to the difficulties with which this country was faced in the world situation as it affected the position of sterling. I should be out of order if I went too far along that road, and I have spoken on that subject before. That is the basis upon which we have worked, as the Chancellor has also pointed out.
The fact that we should ask the Committee to put on charges is merely in order to carry out what had, at one time at any rate, been intended by the party opposite. They may have sheered off afterwards, but they had at one time intended it, otherwise they would not have passed legislation empowering them to do so. They changed their minds, as anybody is entitled to do. But when they brought in that Bill they did not insert any provision that it should have any specific limit. The 1949 Act dealt with the prescription charge: we are extending the field of the prescription charge, and in doing so are not proposing, if the Committee accepts our view, to put in a time limit either—although we have put in Clause 3 a provision by which the charges can either be varied or abolished altogether.

Mr. McNeil: I quite agree when the right hon. Gentleman says this is a narrow point, and this might not be the most appropriate or the tidiest place to amend if he were of our mind. I take it he is not complaining about the machinery. He is rejecting completely the proposal that he should write in, wherever it seems appropriate to him, a


limit in time to the operation of this charge. Although he skated round it with his usual dexterity, that is really what he is saying to the Committee.

Mr. Crookshank: Yes, I do ask the Committee not to write a date into this Clause. If one wanted to put in a date I cannot see how we could be sure what the right date was. That is part of the difficulty. How are we to say what the position will be on 1st April, 1954?
I understood that the argument of the right hon. Gentleman, and why he was so anxious to have a date put in, was so that it would enable a review of the whole of the Health Service to take place, and would give, so to speak, a target date before which it must be done. Well, he knows as well as I do that it is not really necessary to have a target date for reviewing a great national service. It is obvious that with a new experiment, if you like—as was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) in his speech, which was so much admired—in the experimental period there have to be changes made this way and that way, and investigations take place. But if the object in putting in a two years period is merely to make sure that there is to be a great investigation into the Health Service, I do not think that is a valid reason at all.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Marquand: I think that the right hon. Gentleman's explanation—and I hope to be brief because there are other hon. Members who wish to speak—is quite unsatisfactory. He based his case largely on what is in Clause 3 of the Bill—
Or direct that any such charge shall cease to be payable.
He failed completely to meet the point we made, that we required the termination of the Act itself. All that he has pointed out is that it is possible under the Bill to bring to an end any particular charge. This, as he realises I am sure, completely fails to meet the point we made.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. P. G. T. Buchan-Hepburn): rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question, "That the Question be now put," put, and agreed to.

Mr. McNeil: On a point of order, Sir Charles. I raised my voice immediately and reached for cover for my head.

The Chairman: I know, but the Question had to be put forthwith.

Mr. McNeil: With the greatest respect, Sir Charles, I suggest to you that immediately the Patronage Secretary saw that I was on my feet he attempted to withdraw the Motion for the Closure. I suggest, therefore, that he did so because it was quite plain, as has happened at an earlier stage in the proceedings on this Bill, that many questions have been put which have not been answered. The other point is that the right hon. Gentleman courteously and, I hope, with appropriateness, did attempt to withdraw the Motion when he saw that a Member on these benches had risen.

The Chairman: I had then put the Question, "That the Question be now put."

Mr. McNeil: I appreciate the difficulty of the Chair, but perhaps you will attempt to find out if my interpretation of the situation is correct.

The Chairman: The Closure was moved and carried. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I said that I thought the "Ayes" had it, several times. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] The Question was put. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I said it several times, because I was surprised that nobody said, "No."

Mr. William Ross: We were shouting "No" all the time.

The Chairman: Be calm for a moment. Let us collect ourselves.

Mr. Ross: Let us collect the voices.

The Chairman: I did.

Mr. Ross: You did not, Sir Charles.

The Chairman: I must ask the hon. Member to withdraw that remark.

Mr. Ross: I withdraw, but I called "No" and continued to call "No" all the time. I am surprised that you, Sir Charles, in the Chair, did not hear me.

The Chairman: I did not hear it, and my advisers did not hear it.

Mr. Turner-Samuels: On a point of order.

The Chairman: There is no point of order. The Closure was moved.

Mr. A. C. Manuel: It was never moved properly.

The Chairman: I am not infallible and I may be wrong. I happen, however, to be Chairman for the time being, and if I am not allowed to conduct things to the best of my ability, someone else had better be appointed. My impression of what happened is that the Chief Whip moved the Closure.

Mr. Manuel: He attempted to do so.

Hon. Members: Ask him.

Mr. Buchan-Hepburn: Yes, Sir. I did move the Closure.

The Chairman: That having been done, I said, "The Question is, 'That the Question be now put.' All those of that opinion say 'Aye'; to the contrary, 'No'." [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] May I be allowed to continue? There were no shouts of "No," and I was very much surprised. I said several times, "I think the Ayes have it."

Mr. Ross: I shouted "No."

The Chairman: I did not hear it. I inquired of my advisers if they heard it and they did not. The suggestion has been put to me by the Leader of the House that if there is this difficulty I should put the Question again.

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The Committee proceeded to a Division; but no Member being willing to act as Teller for the Ayes, The CHAIRMAN declared that the Noes had it.

Original Question again proposed.

Mr. McNeil: I am most grateful to the Minister of Health for taking this very unusual but highly ingenious method of correcting what was a complete misunderstanding. I should, however, be disloyal to my hon. and right hon. Friends if I did not say that, while I appreciate the courtesy and ingenuity of the right hon. Gentleman, we deeply regret that the Patronage Secretary found it necessary to move a Motion of this kind so soon. After all, Sir Charles, we are here discussing a very essential part of the provisions of the Bill, and my recollection is that our discussion had not

continued more than two hours. If we are to dispose of the Bill at that rate, then, from my limited experience, I suggest, with all respect, that it is unlikely that the Committee will be completely calm during the deliberations.
I am not clear whether I correctly follow the remarks of the Minister. If he is arguing that this is an inappropriate instrument into which to write a date then, of course, that can be met quite easily. An undertaking by the right hon. Gentleman to address himself to what he considers to be the appropriate instrument to meet the substance of our point would, of course, result immediately in our withdrawing the Amendment. If he means that at a later stage—on Clause 3 (1)—we should design an Amendment for that, then we shall be delighted to meet him.
But I and my hon. and right hon. Friends think that what this means is that the Government have determined that they will not in any way seek to meet our basic objections to the range and character of these impositions and restrictions upon the National Health Service. It has been said in answer to the arguments we have advanced that no one can say that two years from now will be an appropriate point at which to make this easement, since no one can say with certainty that our economic situation will be relieved by that time. That is true, but the Minister knows perfectly well that, if these were the conditions, any Committee would be bound to listen to his arguments and to take note of the facts which he then offered.
The right hon. Gentleman must understand that, by that very argument, some part of this Committee might be willing to abandon a scheme because of the existing economic conditions and, for the very same reason, would not be prepared to accede to there being no term to these impositions and restrictions. Many points were put relevant to the operation of the scheme, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop), and the right hon. Gentleman has only addressed himself to two. We are grateful for that part of his answer.
I plead with him to face the fact that people who are jealous to protect the


operation of this scheme cannot be expected to accept this Clause which is undated—which has no period of time set to it—when no reasons are offered for that. If it is that economic conditions make these restrictions necessary, then obviously there is no need for this Clause to be undated.
But if the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have some other reason, as we suspect—as we are bound to suspect because of their opposition to this reasonable Amendment—then it would be better that he should be frank with

the Committee and tell us that the intention is to change the character of the Health Service which my right hon. and hon. Friends created and which we intend to defend.

Mr. Buchan-Hepburn: rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 275; Noes, 262.

Division No. 60.]
AYES
[7.15 p.m.


Aitken, W. T.
Crouch, R. F.
Hope, Lord John


Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)
Crowder, John E. (Finchley)
Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.


Alpert, C. J. M.
Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)
Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
Darling, Sir William (Edinburgh, S.)
Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)


Amery, Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Davidson, Viscountess
Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)


Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.
Deedes, W. F.
Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)


Arbuthnot, John
Digby, S. Wingfield
Hulbert, Wing Comdr. N. J.


Ashton, H. (Chelmsford)
Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Hurd, A. R.


Astor, Hon. J. J. (Plymouth, Sutton)
Donaldson, Comdr. C. E. McA
Hutchinson, Sir Geoffrey (Ilford, N.)


Astor, Hon. W. W. (Bucks, Wycombe)
Donner, P. W.
Hutchison, Lt.-Com. Clark (E'b'rgh, W.)


Baker, P. A. D.
Doughty, C. J. A.
Hutchison, James (Scotstoun)


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.
Dugdale, Maj. Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)
Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.


Baldwin, A. E.
Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.
Jenkins, R. C. D. (Dulwich)


Banks, Col. C.
Duthie, W. S.
Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)


Barber, A. P. L.
Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
Jones, A. (Hall Green)


Barlow, Sir John
Erroll, F. J.
Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.


Baxter, A. B.
Fell, A.
Kaberry, D.


Beach, Maj. Hicks
Finlay, Graeme
Kerr, H. W. (Cambridge)


Beamish, Maj. Tufton
Fisher, Nigel
Lambert, Hon. G.


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.
Lambton, Viscount


Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)
Fletcher, Walter (Bury)
Lancaster, Col. C. G.


Bennett, F. M. (Reading, N.)
Fletcher-Cooke, C.
Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.


Bennett, Sir Peter (Edgbaston)
Fort, R.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)
Foster, John
Legh, P. R. (Petersfield)


Bennett, William (Woodside)
Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)
Lindsay, Martin


Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Fraser, Sir Ian (Morecambe &amp; Lonsdale)
Linstead, H. N.


Birch, Nigel
Fyfe Rt. Hon. Sir David Maxwell
Llewellyn, D. T.


Bishop, F. P.
Gage, C. H.
Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)


Black, C. W.
Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)
Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)


Boothby, R. J. G.
Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)
Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.


Bossom, A. C.
Gammans, L. D.
Longden, Gilbert (Herbs, S. W.)


Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.
Garner-Evans, E. H.
Low, A. R. W.


Boyle, Sir Edward
George, Rt. Hon. Maj. G. Lloyd
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)


Brains, B. R.
Glyn, Sir Ralph
Lucas, P. B. (Brentford)


Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)
Godber, J. B.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh


Braithwaite, Lt.-Cdr. G. (Bristol, N. W.)
Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.
Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Gough, C. F. H.
McAdden, S. J.


Brooman-White, R. C.
Gower, H. R.
McCallum, Major D.


Browne, Jack (Govan)
Graham, Sir Fergus
McCorquodale, Rt. Hon. M. S.


Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T.
Gridley, Sir Arnold
Macdonald, Sir Peter (I. of Wight)


Bullard, D. G.
Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)
Mackeson, Brig. H. R.


Bullock, Capt. M.
Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)
McKibbin, A. J.


Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.
Harden, J. R. E.
McKie, J. H. (Galloway)


Burden, F. F. A.
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)
Maclay, Hon. John


Butcher, H. W.
Harris, Reader (Heston)
Maclean, Fitzroy


Butler, Rt. Hon. R. A. (Saffron Walden)
Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)
MacLeod, Iain (Enfield, W.)


Carr, Robert (Mitcham)
Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfield)
MacLeod, John (Ross and Cromarty)


Carson, Hon. E.
Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)
Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)


Cary, Sir Robert
Harvie-Watt, Sir George
Macpherson, MacNiall (Dumfries)


Channon, H.
Hay, John
Maitland, Comdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)


Clarke, Col. Ralph (East Grinstead)
Head, Rt. Hon. A. H.
Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W.)
Heald, Sir Lionel
Manningham-Buller, Sir R. E.


Clyde, Rt. Hon. J. L.
Heath, Edward
Markham, Major S. F.


Cole, Norman
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Marlowe, A. A. H.


Colegate, W. A.
Higgs, J. M. C.
Marples, A. E.


Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)
Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)


Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert
Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
Marshall, Sidney (Sutton)


Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Hirst, Geoffrey
Maudling, R.


Cranborne, Viscount
Holland-Martin, C. J.
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. G.
Hollis, M. C.
Medlicott, Brig. F.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Holmes, Sir Stanley (Harwich)
Mellor, Sir John




Monckton, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter
Roper, Sir Harold
Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. P. L. (Hereford)


Morrison, John (Salisbury)
Russell, R. S.
Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)


Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.
Ryder, Capt. R. E. D.
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)


Nabarro, G. D. N.
Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)


Nicholls, Harmar
Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.
Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N.


Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)
Schofield, Lt.-Col W. (Rochdale)
Tilney, John


Nicolson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E.)
Scott, R. Donald
Touche, G. C.


Nield, Basil (Chester)
Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.
Turner, H. F. L.


Noble, Cmdr. A. H. P.
Shepherd, William
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Nugent, G. R. H.
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)
Vane, W. M. F.


Nutting, Anthony
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


Odey, G. W.
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)
Vesper, D. F.


O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Antrim, N.)
Smithers, Sir Waldron (Orpington)
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.
Smyth, Brig. J. G. (Norwood)
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (Marylebone)


Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Snadden, W. McN
Walker-Smith, D. C.


Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)
Soames, Capt. C.
Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)


Osborne, C.
Spearman, A. C. M.
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)


Partridge, E.
Speir, R. M.
Waterhouse, Capt Rt. Hon. C.


Perkins, W. R. D.
Spence, H. R. (Aberdeenshire, W.)
Watkinson, H. A.


Peto, Brig. C. H. M.
Spens, Sir Patrick (Kensington, S.)
Wellwood, W.


Peyton, J. W. W.
Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard
White, Baker (Canterbury)


Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Stevens, G. P.
Williams, Rt. Hon. Charles (Torquay)


Pitman, I. J.
Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Powell, J. Enoch
Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)
Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)


Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Profumo, J. D.
Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)
Wills, G.


Raikes, H. V.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Rayner, Brig. R.
Studholme, H. G.
York, C.


Redmayne, M.
Summers, G. S.



Remnant, Hon. P.
Sutcliffe, H.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Renton, D. L. M.
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)
Mr. Drewe and Mr. Oakshott


Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)
Teeling, W.





NOES


Acland, Sir Richard
Cullen, Mrs. A.
Harrison, J. (Nottingham, E.)


Albu, A. H.
Daines, P.
Hastings, S.


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Davies, A. Edward (Stoke N.)
Hayman, F. H.


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
Healey, Denis (Leeds, S. E.)


Anderson, Alexander (Motherwell)
Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Rowley Regis)


Anderson, Frank (Whitehaven)
de Freitas, Geoffrey
Herbison, Miss M.


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Deer, G.
Hobson, C. R.


Awbery, S. S.
Delargy, H. J.
Holman, P.


Ayles, W. H.
Dodds, N. N.
Holmes, Horace (Hemsworth)


Bacon, Miss Alice
Donnelly, D. L.
Holt, A. F.


Baird, J.
Driberg, T. E. N.
Houghton, Douglas


Balfour, A.
Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John (W. Bromwich)
Hey, J. H.


Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Edelman, M.
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)


Bence, C. R.
Edwards, John (Brighouse)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)


Benn, Wedgwood
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Hynd, H. (Accrington)


Benson, G.
Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)


Beswick, F.
Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
Irving, W. J. (Wood Green)


Bing, G. H. C.
Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)
Janner, B.


Blackburn, F.
Ewart, R.
Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.


Blenkinsop, A.
Fernyhough, E.
Jeger, George (Goole)


Blyton, W. R.
Field, W. J.
Jenkins, R. H. (Stechford)


Boardman, H.
Fienburgh, W.
Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Finch, H. J.
Jones, David (Hartlepool)


Bowden, H. W.
Fletcher, Eric (Islington, E.)
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)


Bowles, F. G.
Follick, M.
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)


Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Foot, M. M.
Keenan, W.


Brockway, A. F.
Forman, J. C.
Kenyon, C.


Brook, Dryden (Halifax)
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Freeman, John (Watford)
King, Dr. H. M.


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Freeman, Peter (Newport)
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
Lever, Harold (Cheetham)


Burke, W. A.
Glanville, James
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)


Burton, Miss F. E.
Gooch, E. G.
Lewis, Arthur


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Lindgren, G. S.


Callaghan, L. J.
Greenwood, Anthony (Rossendale)
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.


Carmichael, J.
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur (Wakefield)
Logan, D. G.


Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
Longden, Fred (Small Heath)


Champion, A. J.
Grey, C. F.
MacColl, J. E.


Chapman, W. D.
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
McGhee, H. G.


Chetwynd, G. R.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
McGovern, J.


Clunie, J.
Griffiths, William (Exchange)
McInnes, J.


Coldrick, W.
Grimond, J.
McKay, John (Wallsend)


Collick, P. H.
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
McLeavy, F.


Cook, T. F.
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)


Cove, W. G.
Hall, John (Gateshead, W.)
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Hamilton, W. W.
Mainwaring, W. H.


Crosland, C. A. R.
Hardy, E. A.
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)


Crossman, R. H. S.
Hargreaves, A.
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)







Mann, Mrs. Jean
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


Manuel, A. C.
Proctor, W. T.
Taylor, Rt. Hon. Robert (Morpeth)


Marquand, Rt. Hon H. A.
Pryde, D. J.
Thomas, David (Aberdare)


Mayhew, C. P.
Pursey, Cmdr. H.
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)


Mellish, R. J.
Rankin, John
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)


Messer, F.
Reeves, J.
Timmons, A.


Mikardo, Ian
Reid, Thomas (Swindon)
Turner-Samuels, M.


Mitchison, G. R.
Reid, William (Camlachie)
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn


Monslow, W.
Rhodes, H.
Viant, S. P.


Moody, A. S.
Robens, Rt. Hon. A.
Wallace, H. W.


Morgan, Dr. H. B. W.
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Watkins, T. E.


Morley, R.
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)
Webb, Rt. Hon M. (Bradford C.)


Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
Ross, William
Weitzman, D.


Morrison, Rt. Hon H. (Lewisham, S.)
Royle, C.
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Mort, D. L.
Schofield, S. (Barnsley)
Wells, William (Walsall)


Moyle, A.
Shackleton, E. A. A.
West, D. G.


Mulley, F. W.
Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir Hartley
Wheatley, Rt. Hon John


Murray, J. D.
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)


Nally, W.
Short, E. W.
White, Henry (Derbyshire. N. E.)


Neal, Harold (Bolsover)
Shurmer, P. L. E.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J.
Silverman, Julius (Erdington)
Wigg, George


Oldfield, W. H.
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)
Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.


Oliver, G. H.
Slater, J.
Willey, Frederick (Sunderland, N.)


Orbach, M.
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)
Willey, Octavius (Cleveland)


Oswald, T.
Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)
Williams, David (Neath)


Padley, W. E.
Snow, J. W.
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)


Paget, R. T.
Sorensen, R. W.
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)
Soskice, Rt. Hon Sir Frank
Williams, Rt. Hon Thomas (Don V'll'y)


Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
Sparks, J. A.
Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)


Pannell, Charles
Steele, T.
Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)


Parker, J.
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)
Wilson, Rt. Hon Harold (Huyton)


Paton, J.
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.
Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)


Pearson, A.
Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Peart, T. F.
Stross, Dr. Barnett
Wyatt, W. L.


Plummer, Sir Leslie
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.
Yates, V. F.


Popplewell, E.
Swingler, S. T.
Younger, Rt. Hon. K.


Porter, G.
Sylvester, G. O.



Price, Joseph T. (Westhoughton)
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:




Mr. Wilkins and Mr. Hannan.

While the Division was in progress—

Mr. James Carmichael: (seated and covered): On a point of order. I want to submit to you, Sir Charles, a point about the Closure. A few seconds ago an hon. Member moved the Closure, but the unanimous opinion of the Committee was against the Motion and the debate continued. As far as I can gather, the question of putting the Closure rests with the Chair, and the Chairman admits the Motion if he feels that the Committee and himself are satisfied that the debate has been completed. In this case, after the entire Committee had opposed the Motion, one speaker made some comments from the Box and immediately afterwards you applied the Closure. I submit to you that, with the knowledge that the Committee was against the Closure, you applied the Motion most speedily when, according to all precedents, it should not have operated at all.

The Chairman: The only charge of which I am guilty is speed, and I agree

that I move quickly, but otherwise I was carrying out Standing Orders. It is my right to accept the Closure, and I think it ought to have been accepted in this case. There can be no debate about it and there is no point of order.

Mr. Carmichael: I put this to you, Sir Charles—and it is the last point I will make. Surely, if the entire Committee unanimously agrees that the Closure should not be put, it is stretching Standing Orders for you to apply it three minutes afterwards.

The Chairman: I do not think so. These were exceptional circumstances. I still hold the view that the voices were collected and the Closure Motion properly moved in the first instance, but, owing to exceptional circumstances, I was quite happy to allow another speaker to take part in the debate and then to accept the Closure Motion.

Question put accordingly, "That the proposed words be there inserted."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 263; Noes, 276

Division No. 61.]
AYES
[7.25 p.m.


Acland, Sir Richard
Freeman, John (Watford)
Morrison, Rt. Hon H. (Lewisham, S.)


Adams, Richard
Freeman, Peter (Newport)
Mort, D. L.


Albu, A. H.
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
Moyle, A.


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Glanville, James
Mulley, F. W.


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Gooch, E. G.
Murray, J. D.


Anderson, Alexander (Motherwell)
Gordon-Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Nally, W.


Anderson, Frank (Whitehaven)
Greenwood, Anthony (Rossendale)
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur (Wakefield)
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J.


Awbery, S. S.
Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
Oldfield, W. H.


Ayles, W. H.
Grey, C. F.
Oliver, G. H.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Orbach, M.


Baird, J.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Oswald, T.


Balfour, A.
Griffiths, William (Exchange)
Padley, W. E.


Barnes, Rt. Hon A. J.
Grimond, J.
Paget, R. T.


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)


Bence, C. R.
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)


Benn, Wedgwood
Hall, John (Gateshead, W.)
Pannell, Charles


Benson, G.
Hamilton, W. W.
Parker, J.


Beswick, F.
Hardy, E. A.
Paton, J.


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Hargreaves, A.
Pearson, A.


Bing, G. H. C.
Harrison, J. (Nottingham, E.)
Peart, T. F.


Blackburn, F.
Hastings, S.
Plummer, Sir Leslie


Blenkinsop, A.
Hayman, F. H.
Popplewell, E.


Blyton, W. R.
Healey, Denis (Leeds, S. E.)
Porter, G.


Boardman, H.
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Rowley Regis)
Price, Joseph T. (Westhoughton)


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Herbison, Miss M.
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)


Bowden, H. W.
Hobson, C. R.
Proctor, W. T.


Bowles, F. G.
Holman, P.
Pryde, D. J.


Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Holmes, Horace (Hemsworth)
Pursey, Cmdr. H.


Brockway, A. F.
Holt, A. F.
Rankin, John


Brook, Dryden (Halifax)
Houghton, Douglas
Reeves, J.


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Hoy, J. H.
Reid, Thomas (Swindon)


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)
Reid, William (Camlachie)


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Rhodes, H.


Burke, W. A.
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Robens, Rt. Hon. A.


Burton, Miss F. E.
Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Callaghan, L. J.
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Ross, William


Carmichael, J.
Irving, W. J. (Wood Green)
Royle, C.


Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Janner, B.
Schofield, S. (Barnsley)


Champion, A. J.
Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.
Shackleton, E. A. A.


Chapman, W. D.
Jeger, George (Goole)
Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir Hartley


Chetwynd, G. R.
Jenkins, R. H. (Stechford)
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.


Clunie, J.
Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)
Short, E. W.


Cocks, F. S.
Jones, David (Hartlepool)
Shurmer, P. L. E.


Coldrick, W.
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Silverman, Julius (Erdington)


Collick, P. H.
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)


Cook, T. F.
Keenan, W.
Slater, J.


Cove, W. G.
Kenyon, C.
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)


Crosland, C. A. R.
King, Dr. H. M.
Snow, J. W.


Crossman, R. H. S.
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Sorensen, R. W.


Cullen, Mrs. A.
Lever, Harold (Cheatham)
Soskice, Rt. Hon Sir Frank


Daines, P.
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Sparks, J. A.


Davies, A. Edward (Stoke, N.)
Lewis, Arthur
Steele, T.


Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
Lindgren, G. S.
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)


Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.


de Freitas, Geoffrey
Logan, D. G.
Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)


Deer, G.
Longden, Fred (Small Heath)
Stross, Dr. Barnett


Delargy, H. J.
MacColl, J. E.
Summerekill, Rt. Hon. E.


Dodds, N. N.
McGhee, H. G.
Swingler, S. T.


Donnelly, D. L.
McGovern, J.
Sylvester, G. O.


Driberg, T. E. N.
McInnes, J.
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John (W. Bromwich)
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
McLeavy, F.
Taylor, Rt. Hon. Robert (Morpeth)


Edelman, M.
MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)
Thomas, David (Aberdare)


Edwards, John (Brighouse)
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)


Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Timmons, J.


Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)
Mann, Mrs. Jean
Turner-Samuels, M.


Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
Manuel, A. C.
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn


Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Viant, S. P.


Ewart, R.
Mayhew, C. P.
Wallace, H. W.


Fernyhough, E.
Mellish, R. J.
Watkins, T. E.


Field, W. J.
Messer, F.
Webb, Rt. Hon. M. (Bradford, C.)


Fienburgh, W.
Mikardo, Ian
Weitzman, D.


Finch, H. J.
Mitchison, G. R.
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Fletcher, Eric (Islington, E.)
Monslow, W.
Wells, William (Walsall)


Follick, M.
Moody, A. S.
West, D. G.


Foot, M. M.
Morgan, Dr. H. B. W.
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. John


Forman, J. C.
Morley, R.
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N. E.)







Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)
Wyatt, W. L.


Wigg, George
Williams, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Don V'll'y)
Yates, V. F.


Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.
Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)
Younger, Rt. Hon. K.


Willey, Frederick (Sunderland, N.)
Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)



Willey, Octavius (Cleveland)
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Williams, David (Neath)
Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)
Mr. Wilkins and Mr. Hannan.


Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.





NOES


Aitken, W. T.
Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)


Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)
Erroll, F. J.
Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.


Alport, C. J. M.
Fell, A.
Longden, Gilbert (Herts, S. W.)


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
Finlay, Graeme
Low, A. R. W.


Amory, Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Fisher, Nigel
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)


Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.
Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.
Lucas, P. B. (Brentford)


Arbuthnot, John
Fletcher, Walter (Bury)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh


Ashton, H. (Chelmsford)
Fletcher-Cooke, C.
Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.


Astor, Hon. J. J. (Plymouth, Sutton)
Fort, R.
McAdden, S. J.


Astor, Hon. W. W. (Bucks, Wycombe)
Foster, John
McCallum, Major D.


Baker, P. A. D.
Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)
McCorquodale, Rt. Hon. M. S.


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr J. M.
Fraser, Sir Ian (Morecambe &amp; Lonsdale)
Macdonald, Sir Peter (I. of Wight)


Baldwin, A. E.
Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir David Maxwell
Mackeson, Brig. H. R.


Banks, Col. C.
Gage, C. H.
McKibbin, A. J.


Barber, A. P. L.
Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)
McKie, J. H. (Galloway)


Barlow, Sir John
Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)
Maclay, Hon. John


Beach, Maj. Hicks
Gammons, L. D.
Maclean, Fitzroy


Beamish, Maj. Tufton
Garner-Evans, E. H.
MacLeod, Iain (Enfield, W.)


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
George, Rt. Hon. Maj. G. Lloyd
MacLeod, John (Ross and Cromarty)


Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)
Glyn, Sir Ralph
Macmillan Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)


Bennett, F. M. (Reading, N.)
Godber, J. B.
Macpherson, Maj. Niall (Dumfries)


Bennett, Sir Peter (Edgbaston)
Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.
Maitland, Comdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)
Gough, C. F. H.
Maitland, Patrick, (Lanark)


Bennett, William (Woodside)
Gower, H. R.
Manningham-Buller, Sir R. E.


Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Graham, Sir Fergus
Markham, Major S. F.


Birch, Nigel
Gridley, Sir Arnold
Marlowe, A. A. H.


Bishop, F. P.
Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)
Marples, A. E.


Black, C. W.
Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)
Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)


Boothby, R. J. G.
Harden, J. R. E.
Marshall, Sidney (Sutton)


Bossom, A. C.
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)
Maudling, R.


Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.
Harris, Reader (Heston)
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.


Boyle, Sir Edward
Harrison, Col. Harwood (Eye)
Medlicott, Brig, F.


Braine, B. R.
Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfield)
Mellor, Sir John


Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)
Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)
Monckton, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter


Braithwaite, Lt.-Cdr. G. (Bristol, N. W.)
Harvie-Watt, Sir George
Morrison, John (Salisbury)


Bromley-Davenport, Lt. Col. W. H.
Hay, John
Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.


Brooman-White, R. C.
Head, Rt. Hon. A. H.
Nabarro, G. D. N.


Browne, Jack (Govan)
Heald, Sir Lionel
Nicholls, Harmar


Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T.
Heath, Edward
Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)


Bullard, D. G.
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Nicolson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E.)


Bullock, Capt. M.
Higgs, J. M. C.
Nield, Basil (Chester)


Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.
Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)
Noble, Cmdr. A. H. P.


Burden, F. F. A.
Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
Nugent, G. R. H.


Butcher, H. W.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Nutting, Anthony


Butler, Rt. Hon. R. A. (Saffron Walden)
Hirst, Geoffrey
Odey, G. W.


Carr, Robert (Mitcham)
Holland-Martin, C. J.
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Antrim, N.)


Carson, Hon. E.
Hollis, M. C.
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.


Cary, Sir Robert
Holmes, Sir Stanley (Harwich)
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.


Channon, H.
Hope, Lord John
Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)


Clarke, Col. Ralph (East Grinstead)
Horsnby-Smith, Miss M. P.
Osborne, C.


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W.)
Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence
Partridge, E.


Clyde, Rt. Hon. J. L.
Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)
Perkins, W. R. D.


Cole, Norman
Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)
Peto, Brig. C. H. M.


Colegate, W. A.
Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)
Peyton, J. W. W.


Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Hulbert, Wing Cmdr. N. J.
Pickthorn, K. W. M.


Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert
Hurd, A. R.
Pitman, I. J.


Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Hutchinson, Sir Geoffrey (Ilford, N.)
Powell, J. Enoch


Cranborne, Viscount
Hutchison, Lt.-Com Clark (E'b'rgh, W.)
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon H. F. C.
Hutchison, James (Scotstoun)
Profumo, J. D.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.
Raikes, H. V.


Crouch, R. F.
Jenkins, R. C. D. (Dulwich)
Rayner, Brig. R.


Crowder, John E. (Finchley)
Johnson, Howard (Keptown)
Redmayne, M.


Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)
Jones, A. (Hall Green)
Remnant, Hon. P.


Darling, Sir William (Edinburgh, S.)
Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.
Renton, D. L. M.


Davidson, Viscountess
Kaberry, D.
Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Deedes, W. F.
Kerr, H. W. (Cambridge)
Roper, Sir Harold


Digby, S. Wingfield
Lambton, Viscount
Russell, R. S.


Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Ryder, Capt R. E. D.


Donaldson, Comdr. C. E. McA
Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.
Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur


Donner, P. W.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.


Doughty, C. J. A.
Legh, P. R. (Petersfield)
Schofield, Lt. Col. W. (Rochdale)


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Malcolm
Lindsay, Martin
Scott, R. Donald


Dugdale, Maj. Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)
Linstead, H. N.
Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.


Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.
Llewellyn, D. T.
Shepherd, William


Duthie, W. S.
Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)







Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter
Summers, G. S.
Walker-Smith, D. C.


Smithers, Peter (Winchester)
Sutcliffe, H.
Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)


Smithers, Sir Waldron (Orpington)
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)


Smyth, Brig. J. G. (Norwood)
Teeling, W.
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.


Snadden, W. McN
Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. P. L. (Hereford)
Watkinson, H. A.


Soames, Capt. C.
Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)
Wellwood, W.


Spearman, A. C. M.
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)
White, Baker (Canterbury)


Speir, R. M.
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)
Williams, Rt. Hon Charles (Torquay)


Spence, H. R. (Aberdeenshire, W.)
Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N.
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Spens, Sir Patrick (Kensington, S.)
Tilney, John
Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)


Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard
Touche, G. C.
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Stevens, G. P.
Turner, H. F. L.
Wills, G.


Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)
Tweedsmuir, Lady
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)
Vane, W. M. F.
York, C.


Stoddart-Scott, col. M.
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.



Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)
Vosper, D. F.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)
Mr. Drewe and Mr. Oakshott.


Studholme, H. G.
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (Marylebone)

The Chairman: The next Amendment, in the name of the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly), to page 1, line 8, is one which I do not select.

Mr. Desmond Donnelly: On a point of order. The Amendment standing in my name was originally put down in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock), but her name was omitted from the Order Paper while mine was left on. I put it to you, Sir Charles, that this is an Amendment of substance, because it deals with the whole question of out-patients attending hospital, which is a totally different matter from specialists' services. I and my hon. Friend have given a great deal of thought to it, and we both think that it is in the interests of the satisfactory working of the National Health Service that the particular service given to outpatients in hospital should be excluded as a totally different service from that which is given by specialists under the National Health Service.

The Chairman: I thank the hon. Member for the courteous way in which he has put his point of order. I, of course, have to take advice from my advisers, and I went very carefully into the matter. This is one of the Amendments which I decided not to select.

Mrs. Braddock: With great respect, I think you ought to ask for some further advice on this matter, Sir Charles.

The Chairman: I think I have been very good to allow a point of order to be raised on this matter, because really it should not be discussed.

Mrs. Braddock: I want to press you, Sir Charles, on that point of order.

The Chairman: I will not have a point of order on my selection, which is not open to be queried by hon. Members.

Mrs. Braddock: I wanted to argue why it was in order.

The Chairman: Perhaps I should be allowed to explain that the selection of Amendments is one of the powers which the House gives to the Chair. It is not something which can be questioned, but I did allow the hon. Gentleman the Member for Pembroke to deal with it. To be absolutely accurate, there can be no point of order and no one is allowed to discuss my selection.

Mrs. Braddock: May I ask why it is out of order?

The Chairman: I did not say it was out of order. I said I did not select it.

Mrs. Braddock: Can I ask why it was not selected?

The Chairman: After careful consideration I decided not to select it.

Mrs. Braddock: I should like to press this matter. I should like to know why the Amendment was not selected. There must be a reason why. If you were advised that it should not be called because there is some similarity between medicines for the out-patients department and specialists' services, then I humbly submit you have been wrongly advised, Sir Charles.

The Chairman: I thank the hon. Lady for the courteous way in which she put the question to me, and if I answered her and gave my reasons for not selecting it, it would take up a long time. As it is, it cannot be discussed, and we had better keep to the Standing Order.

Mr. Manuel: Seeing that this Amendment has been ruled out of order, Sir Charles, could you indicate if there is any other Amendment on the Order Paper whereby those of us interested in the outpatients attending hospital could raise the particular issue indicated by this Amendment.

The Chairman: Amendments can be put on the Paper and as we come to them I call them, do not select them, or rule them out of order, as the case may be. That is the procedure. I do not think there is anything more to be said.

Mrs. Braddock: Can it be discussed and argued on the Motion, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill"? If you do not call the Amendment for some reason, can the reason for the Amendment being put on the Order Paper be discussed when we come to consider the Clause as a whole?

The Chairman: The hon. Lady knows that when we come to the Motion "That the Clause stand part of the Bill" we cannot discuss an Amendment that has not been selected, but only what is in the Clause. It would not, therefore, be in order to discuss the reasons for putting this Amendment on the Order Paper.

Mrs. Braddock: Can we discuss why it should be out of order?

Dr. Stross: Further to that point of order. Is it not true that the Amendment which appears below this one, namely, in page 1, line 9, to leave out "drugs, medicines or," plus the one after that, which in the same line would leave out "or appliances," between them cover entirely the point made by the hon. Lady, and the whole of the point regarding outpatients?

The Chairman: The hon. Gentleman is clever. He is trying to get me to give my reasons for not selecting an Amendment, which I shall not do.

Dr. Summerskill: I beg to move, in page 1, line 9, to leave out "drugs, medicines or."
The purpose of the Amendment is to exempt the out-patient at a hospital from the charge which it is proposed to make on drugs, medicines, etc. I was surprised to hear the Minister express himself as surprised, when he spoke on the previous Amendment, that these words had been

omitted from the last Bill, and I hope that the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health will convey to him the views which I hold on this Amendment. The position of the out-patient is entirely different from that of the ordinary patient.
The Minister said that the Bill had been introduced because there had been an abuse of the Service. He said that the drug bill was out of control, and he implied that many people were enjoying prescriptions which were too expensive. From that I did not dissent. He said that prescribing was not as careful as it might be. Hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the Committee would agree that the drug bill is excessive.
But nobody can charge the out-patient at a hospital with abusing the Service or can say that the out-patient at a hospital might be a malingerer, a hypochondriac or a medicine addict. If he was any one of those, he would never arrive at the hospital in the first place. He is there because he has been sent by his general practitioner, who is anxious that his patient should have specialist treatment.
If it is found on his first visit to hospital that there is no need for him to make a subsequent visit, he is discharged and is sent back to his own doctor who, in his turn, will prescribe medicine for him. The patient will have the prescription made up by a local chemist. If, however, a course of treatment is advised for the patient at the hospital, and it is decided that he must return on subsequent occasions, he obtains his medicine from the hospital dispensary.
It is for these patients I am now pleading. The patient who obtains his medicine from the hospital dispensary should be exempt from this charge. Many of us are familiar with the out-patient's department of a big hospital.

Mr. Messer: Does my right hon. Friend know that there are certain hospitals which do not dispense but give prescriptions which are dispensed by a local chemist? She would not exclude those, would she?

Dr. Summerskill: I think my hon. Friend would agree with me that the Clause deals particularly with the outpatient at the hospital.

Mr. Messer: Yes.

Dr. Summerskill: It may be unusual for one to address oneself specifically to the Clause, but that is the category which is mentioned in this Clause. The hon. Gentleman will find that his point will be covered by the provision which is made in another part of the Bill dealing with patients who obtain their medicine from chemists. We are now dealing with the out-patient who obtains his medicine from the dispensary.
The out-patient at the hospital is, for the most part, a poor person. Some hon. Members may dissent from that statement, but my experience is that the patient who is fairly well-to-do is anxious to avoid spending time in the out-patients' department and prefers his general practitioner to send him straight to a specialist. Therefore, in the first place, these people are poor. The procedure which is indicated to them is not very welcome. They are told on their first visit that they must return again. Perhaps they have to return again twice in the same week, or for many months they may have to make weekly visits to the hospital.
7.45 p.m.
What does this involve for a poor person? If he is a man, he has to lose time at work. He may be compensated in some cases but not in all cases. If the out-patient is a married woman she may find the making of these visits a little difficult because she has to make arrangements at home. If the patient is an old age pensioner there is the exhaustion involved. For them all, there is involved the payment of the fare to the hospital.
So, there are certain expenses. It is suggested that on top of them a charge should be made to these people. This demonstrates again how far removed the Government are from the lives of the people. I could hardly believe my ears when the Minister said he could not understand why a distinction had been made between the hospital out-patient and the ordinary patient.
If the right hon. Gentleman were a poor person he would know that hospital treatment is something which has to be endured. Not for one moment would he think of undertaking that journey to get medicine and so abuse the scheme because that medicine might not really be needed. If the charge is put on the prescriptions of out-patients it will almost certainly deter them from con-

tinuing treatment. I want to stress that point.
A hospital is not prepared to give treatment to a patient unless it is necessary, and generally the treatment has to be continued. Let us think of the people who have to have continuing treatment in a hospital. I will begin with a child in a children's hospital, going, say to Great Ormond Street week after week. That means that it must be accompanied. Its mother or a friend of hers will probably accompany it, and that means double fares. Furthermore, the working-class woman has to make arrangements at home, which may mean paying a few shillings to a neighbour to look after her other children. On top of all this there is to be this iniquitous charge. One can understand the mother saying that she will not continue the treatment, although it might be of vital importance for the child.
Take next the group of adolescents. The adolescent is generally in the lowest wage group. Regular attendance at a hospital may determine his or her whole future but boys or girls of 18, 19 or 20 need only a little discouragement to make them voluntarily terminate the treatment. The parents and the doctor have to persuade this kind of patient to continue at hospital. If the adolescent is to be charged, he will be reluctant to continue, and will be tempted to stop the treatment.

Mr. Powell: I am much obliged to the right hon. Lady for giving way. She is constantly using the term "treatment." To avoid misunderstanding, I am sure she will make it clear that the Clause is applicable only where the treatment involves repeated prescriptions of drugs or medicines.

Dr. Summerskill: Surely, the hon. Member is not going to quibble in that fashion. I certainly understand that, and I have already made it quite clear that I am talking about prescriptions. Does he realise that it is quite common for the categories I have mentioned to go to hospital and have a prescription made up every time?

Mr. Powell: Not the majority.

Dr. Summerskill: I am afraid the hon. Member is not familiar, perhaps, with hospital life, or as familiar as I am with it, and I could not agree with him. I


would also remind the Committee that sometimes when a patient goes for physiotherapy and complains of something else the hospital authorities, quite rightly, do not always say, "You must go back and get another letter from your doctor," but will be prepared to send him to another department. The hon. Member must not try to ride away on that.
I now come to another category, the chronics. It may be asked, why are patients suffering from chronic disease attending a hospital at all? I would put this point to the Committee, which I think is an important point. In the first place, the person with a chronic disease has been rendered poor by his very disease. He may have had it over a period of years and found life very difficult, but very often he is encouraged by a physician or surgeon to continue to attend the hospital because he is most anxious to watch the progress of the disease. It is very important in these cases that a complete record should be taken in order that this record can be consulted later, perhaps long after the person being treated has died, when a patient who suffers from a similar condition comes to the hospital. Therefore, do not let us ignore the fact that a large number of people suffering from chronic diseases visit the hospitals at the request of physicians or surgeons.
I do not want to weary the Committee because I am sure the human aspect of this is known to all hon. Members. I ask that this category of out-patients in hospitals, who are there because they are suffering, or have been suffering, from very serious diseases—or if the disease is not so serious it is still necessary for them to go frequently for treatment and medicine—shall be exempted from the charge.

Mr. Powell: I would not quarrel with the general picture which the right hon. Lady the Member for Fulham, West (Dr. Summerskill) has drawn of the suffering and need which is associated in the great majority of cases with attendance at the out-patient department of a hospital. Also, I willingly concede that by her professional qualifications she necessarily has more acquaintance than I can claim with the working of a hospital. Nevertheless, my acquaintance with the working of hospitals is not small, and it grows weekly and monthly.
I believe that the right hon. Lady was mistaken in denying that there is an essential connection between the imposition of charges upon prescriptions made by a general practitioner and the imposition of charges upon prescriptions made for out-patients at hospitals. Already, in the course of this stage of the Bill, reference has repeatedly been made to the two causes for which the Bill is before the House.
Those two causes are not mutually exclusive, but they reinforce one another. I will only indicate their nature briefly as they are in the recollection of the Committee, I am sure. There is the financial motive, namely, that it is recognised by all but a small minority that there must be a limit to the amount which in total can be expended on the Health Service. But, secondly, and by no means in conflict with that reason, is the consideration that even if we could take the ceiling off altogether and spend £600 million, there might nevertheless be very good reasons for taking measures of the same, or a similar, kind to some of those in this Bill.
I believe the charges imposed upon prescriptions both for out-patients and for the patients of general practitioners fall into that class. It is generally recognised that the overcrowding—in many cases hopeless overcrowding—of the surgeries of general practitioners has, since the Act came into force, prevented the full value of the skill of the medical profession reaching the patients who really need it. There is a close and intimate connection between the queue in the general practitioner's surgery and the queue in the out-patients department at the hospital.
The hospital service was examined at great length and with great care by the Select Committee on Estimates last year. I should like to remind the House of some of the evidence which they produced in their 11th Report. In reference to out-patients they said:
the most substantial increases have taken place in the services rendered to out-patients, and the great increase everywhere in the number of out-patients was confirmed by the witness who gave evidence before Your Committee.
Then there comes this important observation:
This increase is, to a considerable extent, due to general practitioners sending to


hospitals patients who formerly they would themselves have treated in their own surgeries.
An eminent medical man who gave evidence before the Committee was asked by an hon. Member opposite:
Why do they go to the out-patients department if there is nothing wrong with them?
He replied,
I do not say there is nothing wrong with them, but I say they are such minor things that they could be dealt with by the general practitioner if he had time to examine them and make the diagnosis.
The excessive pressure upon the general practitioner and the excessive pressure upon the out-patients departments of our hospitals hang together. If we attempt to relieve the pressure on the one without taking corresponding measures in respect of the other, we shall only make bad worse in the out-patients departments of the hospitals. In the most real sense—and not merely the technical, legal sense—Clause 1 of the Bill is a corollary of Section 16 of the 1949 Act which right hon. Gentlemen opposite, as late as 1951, still contemplated implementing.
The right hon. Lady has laid great stress upon the problem of the recurrent prescription of the patient attending at an out-patients department, who will need frequent and recurrent prescriptions and who may thereby not merely be deterred from going there, but involved in financial hardship if he continues to attend. It will be noticed that that problem is not peculiar to the out-patient, but is equally a problem which arises out of the charge on prescriptions written by the general practitioner.
That point is one of the big questions which arises on this Bill—the chronic sick and recurrent prescriptions. What are we to do about them? I believe the answer is that we must deal with the problem not by attempting to classify the sickness or the resorts to which the patient goes for treatment but by attempting to concentrate on need. If we can associate with this Bill—and I believe several further steps will be needed before this is achieved—an effective machinery for dealing with cases of hardship and need arising under it, then we shall have dealt with the problem of the chronic sick and the recurrent prescript-

tion whether in out-patients departments, or elsewhere.
Before we leave the Clause now before us we shall have further opportunities of concentrating our attention more on the question of how need and hardship are to be dealt with. So I will merely say that the National Assistance Board were selected for the purpose and commended for the purpose, by the great majority of right hon. and hon. Members opposite.

Mr. Blenkinsop: indicated dissent—

Mr. Powell: I notice that the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop) shakes his head—

8.0 p.m.

Mr. Blenkinsop: The hon. Member will appreciate that there is a great difference indeed between references to the National Assistance Board in cases which arise very rarely in the lifetime of a person, and cases like this, which will arise continually in the lifetime of a person.

Mr. Powell: That does not affect the point. I am speaking on the assessment and relief of need, and the views of the hon. Gentleman on that subject are that
… we regard them"—
that is the National Assistance Board—
as a very suitable means to meet the cases of hardship which may arise."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd May, 1951; Vol. 487, c. 1219.]
I am far from satisfied that, working under their present Regulations and without any further direction or Regulations, the National Assistance Board can fully meet that need. But I do believe it is in the direction of improving them, rather than by attempting to exclude this or that class of patient, that we must seek a solution to the very real problem to which the right hon. Lady has drawn attention.

Mr. Manuel: As I understand it, one of the main reasons for the Government, and the people who control its destiny, wanting to bring in a Bill such as we have before us, is because they are convinced that there is a great deal of waste in connection with the prescription of drugs and medicines. I feel that if this Bill becomes an Act in its present form it will impinge very severely on the con ception which we on this side of the Committee had of what a National Health Service ought to be.
All of us on this side of the Committee feel that the Act which brought the Service into being was the finest piece of legislation put on the Statute Book by the Labour Government when they were in power. Accordingly, I wish it to be fully understood that many of us on this side of the Committee had very heavy hearts at what is happening today. Even last year, when there was a minor attempt at enacting this particular piece of legislation, some of us felt so keenly about it that we had to go as far against it as we could. But at that time there was at any rate the definite guarantee that the legislation was not of a permanent character. However it was felt at that time that there should be, for a period, until 1954, a saving effected in some manner.
This attempt to impose charges for drugs and medicines is not new to right hon. and hon. Members opposite. Those of us who have had long experience in the administration of hospitals in the local authority service know that we had, through the years while advocating the National Health Service, continually to fight against the friends of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite who were Tory county councillors and councillors in these local authorities. And against the intention of these representatives we built up the health and hospital services under the local authorities.
When the Act came into force local authority power was handed to the regional—

The Temporary Chairman (Mr. George Thomas): I hardly think that that applies to this Amendment. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would come to the question of payment for drugs and medicines.

Mr. Manuel: With respect, I thought that if I was talking about the deterrents of which charges for drugs and medicines are part, I was dealing with something relating to out-patients attending hospital.

The Temporary Chairman: I am not proposing to argue with the hon. Gentleman, but I thought he was beginning to make a Second Reading speech on the Health Service rather than addressing himself to this Amendment.

Mr. Manuel: I did notice that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), made certain points

of a Second Reading nature without curb—in fact it has been happening during the whole of the Committee discussions—[Interruption.]—with the exception, of course, of my right hon. Friend, who never goes wrong—

The Temporary Chairman: I think we must get on.

Mr. Manuel: The hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain MacLeod), talked at length about deterrents. He indicated that because the charges had been operated in a modified form the Service had been reduced in certain respects during the course of the past year. That is one way to save on the Service. But if the main argument is that there has been waste there are two ways in which this waste can be tackled.
I am not prepared to take the view that because those who control the Service—and the doctors and others who issue certificates and sign prescriptions are virtually in control of this Service—are lending themselves to abuses, a deterrent ought to be placed on the patients. The way in which we should tackle this problem is by disciplining those who are causing the abuses. We should try to evolve some way of applying discipline within this Service in order that in the first place the person in control will not issue a certificate causing the so-called abuse. That would be much more preferable than cutting down expenditure on the Health Service.
There is something morally wrong with those in charge of the Government of this country who take this weak-kneed way out of this particular impasse of ever-growing expenditure which they think they must control. They indicate that there is to be a ceiling. In fact certain hon. Members opposite have claimed that because the ceiling is not being reduced this year they are immune from criticism. At the same time all of us know that costs in this country are climbing rapidly—

The Temporary Chairman: The hon. Member really is leaving the Amendment far behind. Perhaps he will discuss the Amendment itself.

Mr. Manuel: I should like to ask for a Ruling upon the point with which I was dealing. If certain out-patients attending hospital are to be asked to pay for


all drugs and medicines at the same time as the policies of the Government are causing the cost of living to rise generally, is not it a proper point to put that there should be some easement over the payment for drugs and medicines?

The Temporary Chairman: As I followed his argument, the hon. Member was dealing with the general ceiling for health charges. When I rose he had not related it to the question of drugs or medicines, and that was why I called him to order.

Mr. Manuel: I am very sorry, Mr. Thomas, and I will try to keep within your Ruling, though now that I have elaborated my point a little I think you have agreed that I was really in order.
However, I will come directly to the charges on out-patients attending hospital. On the question of their being asked to pay for the drugs or medicines being used, I want to say that those of us who have had something to do with hospital administration know that there are many people attending the out-patients' departments of hospitals, where they are being subjected to having to wait many long weary hours before they even get treatment, and many are making two or three visits a week. If there were sufficient hospital beds available up and down the country, many of these patients would be in hospital and not attending an outpatients' department.
Therefore, I think that these people should not be penalised when they go to the out-patients' department of a hospital because of the fact that there is a shortage of hospital beds and we are not able to deal with that shortage because of restrictions on building. I am sure that the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary, who is looking so nicely at me, will agree with what I say.
There are also many chronic cases and people whose ailments do not prevent them going to the out-patients' department, and who prefer to be at home. Is the party opposite saying that they will penalise these people still further by the imposition of a charge for the drugs or medicines utilised? I think it is grossly unfair. The same thing applies to many appliances that are supplied in connection with attendance at the out-patients' department of a general hospital. These

people are to be charged for these appliances—I had better keep to drugs and medicines, I think—because of their unfortunate position in being covered by this particular proviso in this Clause.
I think this Tory Government are taking a most retrograde step. I think their policy in connection with the payment for drugs and medicines will have a very damaging effect on our vital health statistics next year and in each succeeding year, and that it will clearly do great damage to the health of the people of this country. I hope we shall see a recognition in the country that, when people return a Tory Government, they are taking a very serious step towards weakening all the good social services which have been built up by the Labour Government before them.

8.15 p.m.

Dr. Stross: The whole of this question of charging for drugs and medicines for out-patients is linked, I understand, with the Minister's desire to save a sum of money, and it is interesting to see how much money the Minister hopes to save. It has been estimated—and I think that the Parliamentary Secretary would not deny this—that the sum total that can possibly be obtained in this direction is about £500,000.
This sum is to be obtained, I presume—we all believe this, although it is not mentioned in the Bill—by a charge of a fixed specific sum. I wonder if we might accept it as 1s., and not as a proportion of the cost of the drugs or medicines supplied? I think that must be assumed. One must, therefore, ask some further questions.
We know, indeed, that some prescriptions are very expensive, and that those for certain drugs cost several pounds. The time may well come when the cost of such prescriptions as aureomycin and cortisone will go up to £10 or £15. Towards the cost of such a prescription, a patient would presumably pay 1s., but, against that, there are other prescriptions which are much cheaper than those expensive ones, in the ratio of perhaps 100—1.
In most cases of those which are much cheaper, the cost is only a percentage of 1s. For example, a prescription for 12 tablets of phenol-barbitone would cost about 1¾d. Would the Parliamentary Secretary say whether the patient in such a case would be asked to pay 1s. towards


the cost of the prescription which is about 2d. or less? I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary would care to nod her head, or disagree with what I am saying.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): My right hon. Friend has already explained that it will be for the patient to pay less if it is less than a shilling charge.

Dr. Stross: I am delighted to hear that, if it is less than a shilling charge, the prescription will cost less, but if the cost is more the payment will be 1s. towards that cost.

Mr. Blenkinsop: This is of some importance, because I thought I understood earlier that the position was that, if a prescription was made up, the charge would be a shilling, irrespective of whatever the actual cost was. I understood quite clearly that that was the position, and it is important that we should be clear about it.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: If the patient handed in the actual prescription to go forward under the National Health Service, he would pay the 1s. charge. If the chemist knows that that item costs a matter of a few pence, the patient can pay the charge direct, in which case the claim will not go forward.

Dr. Stross: Really, this is new to us. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will not be embarrassed for anything she has just told us, but we shall certainly support her if her right hon. Friend takes umbrage at what she has said. If what she has said be true, will it be the case that the chemist will be able to suggest to the patients that they should pay for the medicines themselves because they are not worth a shilling? We do not want to create tension between the patient, the chemist and the doctor, and so on. I therefore welcome what the Parliamentary Secretary said, and we shall certainly hold her right hon. Friend to it.

Miss Jennie Lee: Is the Committee quite clear on what we are discussing? Is it the case that a patient may go to a chemist with a doctor's prescription, and that the chemist may say, "This costs less than 1s., and I will not accept the doctor's prescription." Is it

being left to the discretion of the chemist to make that decision, or at what stage is it made?

Mr. Blenkinsop: If I might follow up that very point, we are dealing here with the hospital and the out-patient, and we want to know whose job it would be to decide what the value of the medicine was—if it is not 1s., and so on. As prescriptions are made up in hospital, is it going to be the job of someone in the hospital to say that the medicine costs less than 1s. and that the patient will therefore pay less? But I understand that the National Assistance Board are making arrangements for refunds of 1s. and not anything less.

Mr. Turner-Samuels: Is there to be a uniformity of charge? Will there be a list that will apply universally? If a charge is to be 2½d., will it be universally and uniformally 2½d.? If so, how and by whom is it to be operated?

Dr. Stross: I am grateful for being allowed to continue. May I point out to the Parliamentary Secretary that we are getting into very deep waters on this subject. If what we are now told is correct—and it really ought to be correct—namely, that if a prescription is not worth 1s. the patient should not pay more than it is worth, what is the technique and procedure for those exempted by poverty need? Are we to assume that they may have a receipt for 2d. or 3d.? It would be invidious if they had a return of 1s. for an expenditure of 2d. After all, we are very concerned with the Health Service as well as with the injury done to poor folk. Therefore, I hope the Parliamentary Secretary or her right hon. Friend will make this matter clear when replying to the debate on this Amendment.
Secondly, are we certain who are outpatients and who are not? Are people who attend a T.B. dispensary considered to be out-patients? When people are sent by the doctor to the out-patient department they are to be charged, or if they are sent as in-patients and then released and told to attend as out-patients they are to be charged. On the other hand, am I correct in assuming that when people are sent to a sanitorium they are not to be charged when they are inside?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: indicated assent.

Dr. Stross: Are they to be charged when they are out and they attend a clinic?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: indicated assent.

Dr. Stross: Well, there we come up against the serious problem of people suffering from a chronic disease and who will be fortunate if they live for the full expectation of life. Many will not, and they will suffer and will not be able to work.

Mr. Ellis Smith: My hon. Friend will be aware that there is a great friend of both of us who has just come out of hospital and who is having to receive continuous treatment of the same kind as he received when he was an in-patient.

Dr. Stross: That is the point I am making. I am grateful to my hon. Friend who, quite rightly, will always come to my rescue. He is referring to an important citizen, an alderman in his constituency. Let us assume that a man falls sick from tuberculosis and is put to bed because he is no longer fit to be ambulant. If he is put in a sanatorium there will be no charge. Some people will be lucky and will get in soon, and therefore the time for extortion will be short. Others in other areas where the situation is more difficult and beds are far too few will have to wait a long time on their bed of sickness, and all that time they will have to pay these charges. Is that reasonable or right?
If the Minister were on the Front Bench and not the Parliamentary Secretary, I would be tempted to ask, "How many bloodstained shillings does he want?" It is a bad business; and it is well known that a great many hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the Committee do not want it. It is a great pity that it has been brought forward.
We are discussing £500,000, representing money extracted from about four million people. I estimate that roughly as the movement to and from the outpatient departments. It is really not worth it. These patients differ from most people because they are most grievously assaulted by disease. That is why they are sent to out-patient departments and told to attend clinics or become patients at out-patient departments after being in hospital. Surely they should not be

mulcted of this miserable shilling. Obviously the same applies to the diabetics.

Mr. Messer: We have Amendments on the Order Paper dealing with those.

Dr. Stross: I am glad, and I hope I shall be able to make these comments at greater length on those Amendments. Instead of obtaining £500,000 to relieve the Exchequer, we shall find that the tendency among those who prescribe will be to save the cost for their patients. Again and again the Minister has told us that he does not intend to tell the doctors what they should put on these forms. He does not propose to suggest that there should be any attempt to prescribe larger amounts of drugs and medicines to save patients going to the doctor so often and paying so frequently.
But what will be the result? There will be over-prescribing on the individual forms. The chemist will be hardly able to read the writing on the forms, so crowded will they be. As it is, we define a chemist as the only person who can read a doctor's handwriting. When these proposals come into force the chemist will not be able to read anything at all on the form.
As soon as the threat of these charges came to public knowledge, a chemist explained to me what happened. For 15 years he had prescribed to the same patient each fortnight two oz. of cotton wool, one oz. of pink lint and one 2½ inch bandage. Then, after the threat of these charges, a change came over Form E.C.10. The prescription was four oz. cotton wool, one pound of pink lint and 12 bandages 2½ inches wide.
I have had experience of these things over many years when I was in practice, and the Parliamentary Secretary can take it from me that the tendency will be towards great waste. I do not think we shall raise £500,000. I doubt whether the figure will be £50,000, and we may even make a loss as a result of these proposals; and that hardly commends them to this side of the Committee.
I was very disturbed to note with what equanimity it is accepted on the benches opposite that all one has to do is to use this deterrent selectively, that there is nothing wrong in using a fiscal deterrent to stop people having the treatment they require, and that all that one


has to do if one finds it working too harshly is to temper the wind to the shorn lamb. We all know what these charges have already done to dentists and dentists' technicians and therefore to the people.
8.30 p.m.
I am delighted to see that the Minister is now back in the Chamber, because I can be more vigorous with him than with the Parliamentary Secretary. I tell him that the £500,000 he hopes to get he will not obtain at all. If he is not going to get it all, why should be persist with something that, we know, he finds so distasteful that he made a thoroughly bad Second Reading speech? Everyone can see that he thinks this is a bad Bill. He does not like a single provision in it. We who have watched him for six or seven years and know how thoroughly able and progressive a master of the House he can be when he wishes, now see him showing himself, because of his dislike for the Bill, quite inept at the matter. All those who sit behind the right hon. Gentleman would be only too happy if he would say that he would give way, not only on this but on many other matters.
We have been told that there has been great abuse, that cascades of medicine have been poured out and that the cost has been very excessive. Let me offer one or two facts on the cost of drugs and medicine. For the whole of the country the bill has been said to be £50 million. The costs for out-patients are approximately £2 million. One-quarter of that is to be saved—that is the £500,000 that the Minister wishes to get back.
We can guess roughly the cost of medicine and drugs before the war. In a typical year—say, 1935—it was estimated that self-medication, drugs and medicines bought directly from the chemists, ran at about £30 million a year. To that must be added the cost of advertisements in the Press—about £4 million—making £34 million. Panel medicine was about £4 million, bringing the figure to £38 million. That left only private medicine, medicine prescribed by consultants and by private doctors in general practice. Obviously, the over-all sum was over £40 million.
Today, the Health Service figure is £50 million. Chemists, however, say that business over the counter is still at about

£30 million, which makes £80 million a year. That is the total cost from every source. In other words, in comparison with pre-war, it has doubled.
What hon. Members opposite have not taken into account in discussing this matter is the fall in self-medication, the turning away by the people who previously bought their medicines at the chemists' shop and have now come into the Service.

Mr. Ellis Smith: It is more reliable, too.

Dr. Stross: I do not say that there are not isolated cases of abuse. I fear that my own colleagues—by which I mean people like myself, and I include myself—can be accused, perhaps, more than the patients.

Dr. Morgan: Keep me out of this.

Dr. Stross: By and large, there is no case made out for serious abuse.
If the right hon. Gentleman would continue what he has begun to do and what his predecessors planned should be done—that is, to send out periodic notes of advice on prescribing to general practitioners—he would find that they would respond. He does not have to do this thing, and I beg him to withdraw it and give us our way on this small but very important Amendment.

Colonel Malcolm Stoddart-Scott: I am not sure that I quite understand the intention of the part of the Clause to which the Amendment relates. One understands that if an outpatient is treated at a hospital and as he leaves is given medicine or drugs to take home with him, he should be charged for them just as a patient goes to his doctor and receives drugs and medicine.
But what is the position regarding medicine and drugs that are given to the out-patient while he is still in hospital in the form of treatment while he is there or is being prepared for investigation? Would a charge be made for them? It is foreseeable that a man who has an accident and goes to an out-patient department might have to have morphia or some other drug to relieve pain or to prevent sepsis. A man who goes to the hospital for treatment for venereal disease might have to receive penicillin and expensive arsenical drugs for his treatment.


Is he to be charged for the treatment he receives in the out-patient department of the hospital? It is not clear from the Clause whether that sort of treatment is to be paid for, or whether only the drugs and medicine that a patient takes away from the hospital are affected.

Mr. Ellis Smith: I have a friend whose case is one of the cruellest I know. He suffers from having been gassed in the First World War. In addition, he suffers from asthma, and at various times has to be an in-patient under the treatment of one of the country's finest specialists. The hospital cannot keep him in bed as long as they would like because of the shortage of beds. He then has to go home and to be treated as an out-patient. That man, we understand, will continuously be having to make a payment for the rest of his life.

Colonel Stoddart-Scott: There may be isolated cases like that, but I am not impressed with that argument because the majority of people who are treated in hospital out-patient departments are people who can go for their treatment and can return home after they have had it. What I am not satisfied about is whether the treatment they are having whilst at hospital—the drugs and the medicines—has to be paid for.

Mr. Turner-Samuels: rose—

Colonel Stoddart-Scott: With regard to venereal disease, for over 40 years all cases have been treated free in this country. Indeed, we have entered into a Brussels agreement with 40 other countries whereby we give free treatment to foreign sailors coming to this country on condition that our sailors are treated free in those other countries. I should like my right hon. Friend to say whether it is intended to exclude this type of outpatient treatment from any charges. If not, we shall have the extraordinary position of having British sailors paying for their treatment while foreign sailors get their treatment free.

Miss Lee: If the Committee reject the Amendment, we may be adding to the cost of medicines instead of saving. We all know perfectly well that there was a considerable number of doctors—some, out of antagonism to the Labour Government's free Health Service—who over-prescribed. No one can have an

intimate knowledge of his or her constituency and of the nurses and doctors in it without being able to give many instances of waste, and, of course, it is the duty of the House of Commons to try to frame legislation that will end the waste. But if any sane person came among us who had not been living with the question of the shilling prescription charge as long as the House has done, he would find it incredible that we were seeking to introduce legislation which did not even attempt to reach the culprit. The culprit goes free.

Mr. Baird: The doctors are getting another £40 million.

Miss Lee: As my hon. Friend reminds me, the doctors are to have £40 million more—and not just the good doctors and the scrupulous doctors. No matter what the record of a doctor may be, no matter how wasteful he is, we are doing nothing to see that he exercises a proper discretion when issuing prescriptions.
Do we not realise that this Measure is an incitement to the best type of doctor to be unscrupulous? I am going to make a charge against my doctor colleagues on this side of the Committee and I am willing to widen it to those on the other side. Suppose any one of them were dealing with one of the hundreds of thousands or, indeed, millions of families that were not entitled to recover their shilling—families that were just above that level? What would he do? If until the present time he had been entirely scrupulous and had given only the necessary drugs and medicines, would he not be tempted—and fall to the temptation—to give them far more? I would; would not they? I do not think there is any doubt about it. This is something we really must take into consideration. It is one of the sources from which we are really inviting abuse.
But there is another source. Suppose one is dealing with the poorest people of all, who are entitled to recover their shillings. One is not going to write out a prescription that is less than a shilling. I should like an assurance from the Minister or the Under-Secretary that if the prescription costs 10d. or 6d. or 4d. the poor persons will be able to recover the money. But if they are going to be able to recover those various sums we are going to be spending more than we


are saving on the administration of this scheme. I suggest to hon. Members opposite that, both on the highest grounds of common decency and on the lowest grounds of sheer electoral expediency, they should agree to this Amendment.
How many of them think that they can live against the real experience of real people, once we find in every constituency in Great Britain the torment of poor folks trying to pay those prescriptions? I do not know who wrote the editorial in "The Times" this morning. I can only say that I did not write it, and the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) has assured me that he did not write it. Nevertheless, there is at least one seditious statement in that leader. It says that the Government has been rushed into this whole Bill by pressure from the Treasury. Either that is true or it is not true; but on all the evidence we have got that is precisely the case. The best I can say about hon. Members opposite is that they must have been rushed into it—that they must have refused to learn from the experience we had when we were on those Government benches.
There were some who thought for a short time that the shilling prescription might be a good idea. Why does the Government reject all the evidence and experience that it would be an irritant and not a real saving? Why do we not get down to the proper job? Why do we not start a campaign against fake patent medicines? Why do not we stand behind the great majority of doctors, and not behind a miserable prescription charge of this nature, to prevent the abuse by the medical profession of deliberately wasting drugs and medicines?
I agree with what has already been said, that we are not going to get even a saving of half a million pounds under this Bill unless still further cruelties are introduced. Instead of that, in the long run, it might be found that with the additional abuses—from the highest of motives, this time—and with the additional administration costs, we are spending all this time and causing so much heartbreak and anxiety and it is not even worth a penny to the stony-hearted Treasury.

Mr. Somerville Hastings: I was very interested to hear what the Parliamentary Secretary told us when

she interrupted, namely, that when the cost of drugs prescribed in hospital was less than 1s. the patient would be charged that lesser sum. I happen to be chairman of one of the post-graduate teaching hospitals in London, and some of the staff are good supporters of the Government. We got busy directly we heard of this proposed charge on prescriptions to try to find out how it could be best carried out in our hospital. After a good deal of thought, we came to the conclusion that it would be best for the patient to go first to the almoner and pay the shilling to her and then take the receipt to the dispensary, or, if the patient was not subject to the charge, he would take a frank instead.
Now that there is this proposal that there should be a differential charge of a sum less than a shilling if the cost of drugs or medicines are less than a shilling, this proposed scheme cannot be carried out. It is only the dispenser who will be able to say what is the cost of the drugs. The almoner cannot do it. I should like to know what extra charge the dispenser is going to add for dispensing. It seems that our carefully worked out scheme will have to go for naught. The patient will have to go first to the dispenser and find out the cost of drugs and dispensing. After that, is the individual to pay the dispenser or how is the money to be collected? There will be a great deal of difficulty if the dispenser has not only to estimate the charges but collect the money afterwards.

8.45 p.m.

Dr. Stross: Is it not a fact that at present in the Health Service there is not a dispensing fee but an on-cost on the original cost of drugs? I do not think there are dispensing fees at present; so the patient would know the cost of the drug the doctor had given him. If it were 2d., the patient would feel that he had been at the doctor's for two hours and had had 2d. worth of treatment.

Mr. Hastings: As I understand it there must be some charge, whether direct or indirect, for dispensing. As the law stands at present the dispenser does not charge the Government merely the cost of the drugs dispensed but also for dispensing. If the matter is to be fair between the private chemist and the dispenser in hospital, some charge for


dispensing at the hospital must also be made.
I should like to raise the very strongest objections to these charges to hospital patients for medicines. As I see it, any barrier, real or imaginary, which tends to prevent the patient from being treated at the earliest possible moment must be wrong, because everyone will agree that it is a fundamental principle of medicine that the earlier the case is seen the more can be done for it. I do not want to give examples, but it would surprise hon. Members if I told them that I myself have twice had what used to be considered the most dread disease in medicine—cancer; but nowadays, cancer, if it is recognised early and treated early, can be dealt with successfully—but only if it is recognised early.
There are, too, all these new drugs called the anti-biotics. How many hon. Members have suffered from pneumonia and been cured and brought back to useful life by these medicines? These drugs have changed the whole outlook in sickness so that, while at all times it has been desirable that patients should seek advice at the earliest possible moment, this is now even more abundantly necessary. I wonder if right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite realise how even a shilling may prevent a patient from attending hospital.
That seems almost incredible to some of us, but may I give an example of the sort of thing which is happening every day? Supposing there is a mother with young children, and one of the children gets earache. If it is neglected the trouble may become chronic, it may make the child deaf, it may lead to mastoid disease, it may lead to abscess in the brain, not usually in childhood but in after-life. On the other hand, if the child is taken to hospital and treated with one of these anti-biotics, such as one of the sulphonamides, the earache clears up. Surely it must be a mistake to impose a charge which may just tip the balance and decide whether a busy mother, with young children, will take her child to the hospital or whether she will let the matter wait.
Some years ago, just after the Health Bill became law, a mother of a young family said to me, "I no longer dread Thursdays." I could not understand what

she meant until I asked her to explain. She said, "By Thursdays the housekeeping money has gone and I dreaded the thought of the child having anything the matter with her and having to be taken to the doctor."
The imposition of these charges is bad for everyone, but it is particularly bad in the case of children and of young people. A young person who has just left school represents a very heavy capital expenditure by the nation. That child has been fed and clothed for 16 years or so, and educated at very considerable cost; and it seems to me to be wrong for us to put anything in the way which would interfere with that child making his full contribution to the nation after so much has been spent on him. As has been said by my hon. Friend, a young person is an investment by the nation. We want to preserve that investment because it is the most precious investment that the country can make.

Mr. Donnelly: After listening to the very moving speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Mr. Hastings), I do not know how the Minister can sit there and still permit the Committee to discuss this Clause and Amendment instead of accepting the Amendment forthwith. A large number of arguments have already been deployed in favour of the Amendment, but there are one or two points which have not yet been made, and one of them, Mr. Hopkin Morris, affects your constituency and mine; and if you were not in the Chair, we could both raise this point.
There are a large number of minor hospitals in West Wales and other parts of Britain from where, very often, a patient has to go by ambulance to a major hospital such as that at Swansea. If they go to that major hospital they are outpatients for one day in that major hospital. What I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to say when she replies is, what is the position of those people when they have to go long journeys to be out-patients, technically, for one day at a major hospital a long way off simply because proper medical facilities do not exist where they live?
I should like to say one word about the whole question of the prescribing of drugs in out-patients' departments. It seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman and those who helped him draft the Bill seem


to imagine that the people who go to out-patents' departments are just casual visitors. Very frequently they are people who cannot go into hospital because of the lack of facilities in the hospitals—a lack of facilities caused by the gross neglect of the right hon. Gentleman's party in five years between the wars. The right hon. Gentleman and those of his colleagues who helped draft this particular Clause seem to me to be people who really have little or no idea of the difficulties of people who go to out-patients' departments. Theirs is the mentality—it is the mentality of the Clause—of those people who simply go to Harley Street whenever they have anything wrong with them.
The whole basis of this Bill and of this particular Clause, which is one which this Amendment would help to nullify, is that life should be made as difficult as possible for people when they are suffering through no fault of their own. In other words, it is based on the principle of kicking a man when he is down. It is a great tragedy, if that is all that the party of the old school tie have to offer to the British people today; and I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether that is what he learned on the playing fields of Eton.
It is monstrous that this charge is put by the Government at this time on people who go to out-patients' departments in circumstances such as these, and who have to pay not only this charge but—very frequently, if they are working people—for loss of time at work as well. It is quite disgusting that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues defend this charge in any way at all, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will take the consensus of opinion of my hon. Friends on this side of the Committee and forthwith accept the Amendment.

Mr. Carmichael: Earlier in the Committee stage the Member of Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) made a plea that we should approach this Measure with a touch of humanitarianism and try to avoid clashing on narrow political lines. I do not know if it is possible in any Measure that comes before the House or this Committee to do that, but I do feel that the case for the Amendment has been made, and the Minister would be justified, even in the eyes of the Cabinet, in accepting it. There is a number of reasons for

it that have been well ventilated by eminent medical men and by others dealing with the economic side.
One of the reasons for the Bill is said to be the serious economic position of the country, and another is that a charge of this kind will be a deterrent. I have been more than amazed that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain MacLeod), who made a strong speech on Second Reading about deterrents, has not made a contribution la our discussion on this question of medicines and drugs. Surely he should tell us whether he is backing the Bill on economic grounds, or whether he feels that there is a waste of medicine?

Mr. Iain MacLeod: Seeing that the hon. Gentleman has referred to me, let me say that, in my view, that is an entirely unreal distinction. It is not just a black-and-white argument. The Leader of the Opposition, when he introduced, in 1949, in the days of Labour Government, the proposal which is the parent—or the grandparent—of what we are discussing now, put as the main reason that there was an unnecessary waste which it was essential to reduce or eliminate. He put the deterrent charge first. Then he said that there would be a resultant saving to the country of £10 million. He put before Parliament both the medical and the financial grounds, and in this, as in many other health charges, the two are not mutually exclusive.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Carmichael: I will take up that point. It is quite true that the 1949 Act permits the Government to make a charge for prescriptions, but there has obviously been an examination since then on economic and administrative grounds. It is now admitted that the thing is quite unworkable. We are entitled to assume it is still unworkable, because we have had no evidence from the Government Front Bench, either on Second Reading or at any other stage, that they have some kind of machinery which can be put into operation to save this £500,000 which they say they will save.
If the deterrent, linked with our economic position, is stressed, surely the hon. Member for Enfield, West, who has been congratulated on his brilliant contributions to our debates on this Bill, would not argue that the stability of this


country rests on the stealing of 1s. from a tuberculosis patient who cannot get into hospital, because that is what this proposal means. I say that it cannot operate administratively and bring in the money suggested. It has already been admitted that the dispenser will not make the charge to the person getting a prescription; but he must make a charge against somebody, and that charge must be against the authority in some form.
On the medical side it has been continually argued from the other side of the Committee that they were in favour of a national health service. I had grave doubts about that from the time they walked into the Lobby against the Measure. I go further. Suppose I assume that they are in favour of a national health service, and suppose they believe that certain economies can be made, if pressed by the Treasury to make those economies. Surely taking 1s. from the hardest hit of our people is not the way to restore the economy of a great Power.
I speak especially of my own area. In the West of Scotland hundreds of people cannot get into sanitoria because of overcrowding. Although the difficulty is lessening, we have the worst possible tuberculosis cases in the whole country, and in the main people suffering from that dreadful disease come from the poorest parts of the country.
In order to save the country and to achieve something like economic security, a prescription charge is to be made; the Government are taking 1s. off people who are unable to bear that charge. In view of the very able speeches made by medical men in the Committee, including hon. Members opposite, I ask the Minister to look at this proposal again, because, with all due respect to the Parliamentary Secretary, she was not very sure whether he is charging 2½d. or 1s. She is still not very sure about it.
Speaking with all sincerity, I agree with many hon. Members on this side of the Committee that the Minister of Health on many occasions has been very accommodating, both as the Leader of the House and as the Minister. I feel that he is justified in giving this matter further consideration. It may be quite impossible for him tonight to give any assurance, but he might give us some indication that he will look at the matter again,

and, if possible, before we reach the Report stage, recognise that, if there is a real clash of political differences between both sides of the House it should not be over a miserable prescription, but over something really worth while, and not on the question of taking a miserable 1s. from the diabetic or the person suffering from tuberculosis. There could be nothing to discredit the Government more in the eyes of decent people.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): The House will he aware that this Clause is part of the general application of a prescription charge, and a very small part, since the bulk of the prescription charge which it is proposed to introduce is already covered by legislation passed by the former Government, under which the saving, as the Committee know, is estimated to be about £12 million.
Having accepted that, and having found, in these difficult times, that it is necessary to implement the legislation passed by the previous Government, we do not accept in justice that it is fair to except those people who get their medicine from the dispensary at an outpatients' department as opposed to going to their general practitioner, obtaining their prescriptions, and getting them dispensed at the chemist's shop.
There is a further difficulty. The point, I think, was made by the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Messer) that there were hospitals and clinics which came under the Health Service where a prescription was given because there was no dispensing service in the hospital or clinic. If this Amendment were accepted we should create an anomaly and an injustice when we want to provide that everyone, from whatever source they obtain their medicine—from the chemist as the result of a general practitioner's prescription or from an out-patients' dispensary—should be charged the same fee.

Mr. Messer: Will the hon. Lady explain this anomaly? Where there is an out-patient department attached to a hospital which has not a dispensary, the patient gets the prescription made up and does not pay. Will the out-patient at the hospital where there is a dispensary also get it free?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The anomaly arises if we accept this Amendment, while determining to continue with the legislation for 1s. prescription charge to general practitioners. We should then have patients attending a hospital where there was no dispensary, having to take these prescriptions to a chemist, where they would be charged 1s.
The right hon. Lady the Member for Fulham, West (Dr. Summerskill) was very eloquent about the various classifications of the sick, the young and the old who go to out-patient departments. That is certainly true, but it is equally true that the old, the young, the sick and the chronic sick also go to their general medical practitioners. If the principle is accepted that in these difficult times it is necessary to make this charge, it is not fair that there should be exemptions purely as a result of whether or not one's prescription is made up by an outpatients' dispensary or by a dispensing chemist or doctor.
There is the further point that if prescriptions were free in the dispensary of an out-patients' department pressure would be increased because people would know that if they obtained their prescriptions there they would be free, whereas if they got them from a general practitioner and went to a chemist they would have to pay. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) made great play about the saving being only half a million pounds. But we are putting the charge equally on all patients: overall saving is the much larger figure of £12 million.
The hon. Member referred to prescriptions costing less than 1s. I want to go into detail about this because the matter was raised by four other hon. Members opposite. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central, referred to the fact that some prescriptions were very much more costly than others, a matter which received a lot of attention on Second Reading. I am sure he will agree with me that it would certainly not be the wish of hon. Members on either side of the Committee that we should make proportionate charges because the remedy for one complaint was vastly more costly than for others.
At Question time today my right hon. Friend said that the average cost of prescriptions last year was 3s. 8d. There-

fore, the 1s. prescription charge is only a moderate proportion of the average cost of all prescriptions. I want to make this point clear, because a number of useful contributions were made in the discussion, and hon. Members generally wanted to find out how this would operate.
If the Health Service is used for the prescription, and the prescription is under this part of the Bill taken to a hospital dispensary, a charge of 1s. is payable. If a patient thinks that the medicine costs less than 1s., or if the chemist dispensing from the general practitioner's prescription advises that it costs less, he can buy it outside the Health Service. [Interruption.]
I think that is fair. Hon. Members may laugh, but it happens to be common sense. It is fair that hon. Members should know that only slightly less than one in every 100 prescriptions costs less than 1s., and the vast majority of that barely 1 per cent. cost between 10d. and 11d. Besides the cost of the actual item, there is the cost of the container and also the dispensing fee. Therefore, a mere fraction of 1 per cent. of prescriptions cost under 10d., and the matter is nothing like so large as some hon. Gentlemen have implied.

Mr. Ness Edwards: How will the old-age pensioner who gets his medicine for 10d. recover that 10d.?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The vast majority of the prescriptions costing less than 1s. are for 10d. The old-age pensioner will pay his 1s. and reclaim it. [HON. MEMBERS: "How?"] I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. I misunderstood him. I was thinking in terms of the old-age pensioner who had a supplementary allowance under the National Assistance Board and would qualify to reclaim. Anyone who qualified to reclaim will have to pay a shilling prescription charge and will be refunded 1s. through the National—

9.15 p.m.

Mrs. Braddock: How?

Miss Margaret Herbison: Is the hon. Lady not well aware that many old-age pensioners almost every week, at some time of the week, just have not got one shilling in their pockets to pay this shilling?

Dr. Stross: Is the position this, that it will not be the chemist who will compute the cost of the prescription but that the patient will receive it and it will be at his or her option to price it? If he or she feels from his or her own knowledge that it is less than a shilling in value, can they say to the chemist "I am paying for this in cash. I have priced it and I know that it is less than one shilling"? If that is the situation then the Department is more bankrupt than I thought.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The hon. Gentleman will agree that the number of people to whom this will apply is small.

Mr. Baird: Five hundred thousand.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The number of prescriptions which cost less than 10d. or 11d. represent the smallest fraction of 1 per cent. of the total prescriptions.

Mr. Ness Edwards: How does the old age pensioner, who pays 10d. for his medicine to the chemist and who is getting a supplementary pension, recover his money?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: A patient who is getting a supplement from the National Assistance Board, or a war pensioner, who wishes to regain a shilling prescription charge—

Mr. Baird: Tenpence.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I have already said that if they obtain their prescription through the Health Service they will pay 1s. and they will regain 1s.

Mrs. Braddock: How?

Miss Hornsby Smith: I am answering the right hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards). In reply to his first point they will pay 1s., and the margin between 10d. and 1s. is so small that we cannot vary the 1s. rate. In reply to the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison), my right hon. Friend in the Second Reading made it plain that those who qualify to regain the 1s. under this Bill will pay a 1s. They will receive a receipt, and when they next go to claim their old age pension and supplementary pension they will receive an extra 1s. when they hand in that receipt at the same time as they apply for—

Mr. Baird: rose—

Miss Hornsby-Smith: No. I have given way a good deal.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ripon (Colonel Stoddart-Scott) raised the question of treatment, medicines and drugs in hospitals.

Mr. Hastings: Can the hon. Lady explain how the people, who are not in receipt of assistance—

Mrs. Braddock: That is what I wanted to know.

Mr. Hastings: —and go to hospital and get a prescription which costs less than 1s., are going to pay for it?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I have already explained that if a patient feels that the cost of his prescription is well under 1s., the margin between 10d. and 1s.

Mr. Baird: That is 2d.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The hon. Member knows that the number of prescriptions which cost under 10d., about which hon. Members are trying to make such a vast issue, is very very small indeed.

Mr. Baird: It is not very small. It is 2 million.

Mr. Peter Remnant: The hon. Gentleman said half a million just now.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ripon raised the question of charges for treatment or drugs by patients in hospital. There is no charge of any kind for in-patients.
The hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Carmichael) suggested that the charge would fall most heavily on the poorest people. I reiterate what my right hon. Friend made plain in the Second Reading, that where there is a genuine case of need the patient has the same recourse to the National Assistance Board for meeting the charge—[Interruption.]

Mr. Carmichael: Will the hon. Lady explain "need"?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: That is the function of the National Assistance Board. After all, it was hon. Gentlemen opposite who incorporated a charge for teeth and spectacles as part and parcel of the National Health Service. They established that principle when they sat on these benches and provided us with the legislation.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison: rose—

The Deputy-Chairman: If the hon. Lady does not give way the hon. and learned Member must resume his seat.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: For the general reasons which I have outlined, and because we believe it would be unjust to make this demarcation between people suffering from the same ailment but receiving their medicine from different sources, we do not accept the Amendment.

Mr. Blenkinsop: The important point is how this charge is to operate in the case of out-patients. Who is to collect the money? Is it to be done on the pharmacy side or is it a job for the almoner? If the latter, will it not add to the almoner's staff and take the almoner away from much more important work?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The hospital will collect the shilling, and it will be for the hospital management committee, or for the superintendent and officers of the hospital, to decide whether the charge will be collected in the dispensary or in the almoner's department.

Dr. Broughton: All I need say about the speech to which we have just listened is that we are very disappointed that the hon. Lady, speaking on behalf of the Government, finds herself unable to accept the Amendment. The Amendment relates to the charges which the Government intend to impose for drugs and medicines issued to patients attending the out-patient departments of hospitals.
Before dealing with that in detail, I feel I must give an answer to a most serious allegation which was made by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), when he alleged that a number of general medical practitioners were not giving proper attention to patients in their own surgeries and were sending cases to hospital which could well have been examined and treated in the general practitioner's consulting room.

Mr. Powell: The hon. Member is entitled to his own opinions, but I made no allegation at all.

Hon. Members: The hon. Member did.

Dr. Broughton: The hon. Member made a definite statement that that was happening—

Mr. Powell: A quotation.

An Hon. Member: Why did he quote it?

Dr. Broughton: That is an allegation against general medical practitioners that they are not doing their work properly, and I must deny that allegation. The hon. Member may like to know that if general practitioners were guilty of that their professional colleagues on the staffs of hospitals would very quickly protest about it and inform the general practitioners that they would be glad to receive only those cases which are in need of hospital treatment and which cannot receive the necessary examination or treatment in the doctor's consulting room. The hon. Member did say at the outset of his remarks that he did not claim to know a great deal about the National Health Service, but he was learning more and more every day. We hope that he will go on learning more and more every day.
These charges which are being imposed for drugs and medicines issued in outpatients' departments of hospitals have been mentioned in this Bill in order that the Government may give the force of law to those economies which were told to us by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the first day we returned after the ridiculously long Christmas Recess. They are some of the measures which the Government—[Interruption]

Mr. Ellis Smith: We are not at the Coliseum now.

Dr. Broughton: —consider necessary in order to help us overcome the nation's economic troubles at present. In previous debates that point has been dealt with and we on these benches do not consider that this is the right way to overcome those economic troubles. I am very sorry that the last Amendment was not accepted because I think that within less than two years, if we are still suffering under a Tory Government, even that Government will wish to repeal this Measure because it will probably be found that it is having a serious and deleterious effect upon the health of the nation. I think these charges for drugs and medicines at out-patient


departments will act as a deterrent to patients who need to go to hospital, and, therefore, their health will suffer.
9.30 p.m.
The whole truth of the matter is that the Government have found themselves up against the really serious problem of the size, and the growing size, of the drug bill. It is a problem which has to be faced and will have to be solved, but I am quite sure that this Bill is not the correct answer to it. Imposing charges for the drugs and medicines of patients attending the out-patient department of hospitals is not the correct way to solve the problem of the huge amount of money we have to spend on drugs.
These charges recall to mind the National Health Service Bill of 1949, to which so many references have been made. I would remind the Committee that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, who was then Prime Minister, stated, on 24th October, 1949:
We propose to make a charge of not more than 1s. for each prescription under the National Health Service. The purpose is to reduce excessive and, in some cases, unnecessary, resort to doctors and chemists, of which there is evidence which has for some time troubled my right hon. Friends the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th October, 1949; Vol. 468, c. 1019.]
The necessary legislation came before us in the form of a Lord's Amendment to the National Health Service Bill on 9th December, 1949. I supported it in the Division Lobby after I had confirmed, by conversations with chemists and doctors, that there was abuse on the part of some patients, and also after I had learned that some doctors were being over-generous in issuing prescriptions.
But when the Labour Government came to consider the necessary regulations for implementing it, they found the charges could not be imposed without inflicting serious financial hardship upon some people and injustice upon a large number of people. The Labour Government had the courage to say that they had found that that Act, hastily passed, I suggest, under Treasury pressure, would not work. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Yes, the Labour Government had the courage to admit it would not work. I should have thought that the Conservative Government which we now have would have

learned something from that experience of the Labour Government. Instead they are allowing themselves to be subjected to the same type of Treasury pressure, and with sheer ridiculous obstinacy are trying to bring these cruel proposals into operation.
I feel that the Minister himself knows that these methods are the wrong ones. We have heard many brilliant speeches from the right hon. Gentleman, but the speech which he made on the Second Reading of this Bill was, in my opinion, the worst I have ever heard him make in this House. The right hon. Gentleman really looked most uncomfortable when making that speech.
I believe that some methods must be devised in the near future to encourage the early recognition and treatment of disease, and, at the same time, they must repress abuse in the prescribing of drugs and medicines. This is the major problem which faces us when we survey the National Health Service. We must find an answer quickly, but, while we are waiting and hoping that the answer will come to us before long, I suggest that people of all political parties, both inside and outside this House, should try to work out a method for improving the nation's health by encouraging early treatment, and, at the same time, for abolishing abuses in the demand for and the prescribing of drugs and medicines.
I wonder if hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite who form the present Government realise that attendance at the outpatient department of a hospital causes financial worry to workers, because they have to break their work for short or long periods and suffer a lower income? Many of them who attend the out-patient departments are dependent for their income on National Insurance benefits and National Assistance. When people are ill, that is the time when they can least afford expense, and to impose these charges upon people who are sick and injured is mean and brutal.
People do not attend the out-patient departments of hospitals unless they have something wrong with them. Prescribing for these hospital cases is done by medical men and women who are remunerated by means of salary and not on a capitation basis, and there has been no abuse of prescriptions in the hospital service.
The proposed legislation merely follows typical Tory policy. The present Government are being mean to the extent of being Scroogian. It all amounts to kicking a man when he is down, and I believe that the people of this country will not stand it for long. It is foreign to the British character, and, therefore, intolerable.

Mr. Buchan-Hepburn: rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 279; Noes, 269.

Division No 62.]
AYES
[9.42 p.m.


Aitken, W. T.
Donaldson, Comdr, C. E. McA
Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)


Allan, R, A, (Paddington, S.)
Donner, P. W.
Jones, A (Hall Green)


Alport, C. J. M.
Doughty, C. J. A.
Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Malcolm
Kaberry, D.


Amory, Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Drewe, C.
Kerr, H. W. (Cambridge)


Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.
Dugdale, Maj. Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)
Lambert, Hon. G.


Arbuthnot, John
Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.
Lambton, Viscount


Ashton, H. (Chelmsford)
Duthie, W. S.
Lancaster, Col. C. G.


Astor, Hon. J. J. (Plymouth, Sutton)
Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.


Astor, Hon. W. W. (Bucks, Wycombe)
Erroll, F. J.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.


Baker, P. A. D.
Fell, A.
Legh, P. R. (Petersfield)


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr J. M.
Finlay, Graeme
Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. A. T.


Baldwin, A. E.
Fisher, Nigel
Lindsay, Martin


Banks, Col C.
Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.
Linstead, H. N.


Barber, A. P. L.
Fletcher, Walter (Bury)
Llewellyn, D. T.


Barlow, Sir John
Fletcher-Cooke, C.
Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)


Beach, Maj. Hicks
Foot, M. M.
Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.


Beamish, Maj. Tufton.
Foster, John
Longden, Gilbert (Herts, S.W.)


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)
Low, A. R. W.


Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)
Fraser, Sir Ian (Morecambe &amp; Lonsdale)
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S)


Bennett, F. M. (Reading, N.)
Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir David Maxwell
Lucas, P. B. (Brentford)


Bennett, Sir Peter (Edgbaston)
Gage, C. H.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)
Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)
McAdden, S. J.


Bennett, William (Woodside)
Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)
McCallum, Major D.


Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Gammans, L. D.
McCorquodale, Rt. Han. M. S.


Birch, Nigel
Garner-Evans, E. H.
Macdonald, Sir Peter (I. of Wight)


Bishop, F. P.
George, Rt. Hon. Maj. G. Lloyd
Mackesen, Brig. H. R.


Black, C. W.
Glyn, Sir Ralph
McKibbin, A. J.


Boothby, R. J. G.
Godber, J. B.
McKie, J. H. (Galloway)


Bossom, A. C.
Gomme-Duncan, Col A.
Maclay, Hon John


Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.
Gough, C. F. H.
Maclean, Fitzroy


Boyle, Sir Edward
Gower, H. R.
MacLeod, Iain (Enfield, W.)


Braine, B. R.
Graham, Sir Fergus
MacLeod, John (Ross and Cromarty)


Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W)
Gridley, Sir Arnold
Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)


Braithwaite, Lt.-Cdr. G. (Bristol, N.W.)
Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)
Macpherson, Maj. Niall (Dumfries)


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)
Maitland, Comdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)


Brooman-White, R. C.
Harden, J. R. E.
Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)


Browne, Jack (Govan)
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)
Manningham-Buller, Sir R. E.


Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T.
Harris, Reader (Heston)
Markham, Maj. S. F.


Bullard, D. G.
Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)
Marlowe, A. A. H.


Bullock, Capt. M.
Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfield)
Marples, A. E.


Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.
Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)
Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)


Burden, F. F. A.
Harvie-Watt, Sir George
Marshall, Sidney (Sutton)


Butcher, H. W.
Hay, John
Maudling, R.


Butler, Rt. Hon. R. A. (Saffron Walden)
Head, Rt. Hon. A. H.
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.


Carr, Robert (Mitcham)
Heald, Sir Lionel
Medlicott, Brig F.


Carson, Hon. E.
Heath, Edward
Mellor, Sir John


Cary, Sir Robert
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Morrison, John (Salisbury)


Channon, H.
Higgs, J. M. C.
Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.


Churchill, Rt. Hon W. S.
Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)
Nabarro, G. D. N.


Clarke, Col. Ralph (East Grinstead)
Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
Nicholls, Harmer


Clarke, Brig. Terrance (Portsmouth, W.)
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)


Clyde, Rt. Hon. J. L.
Hirst, Geoffrey
Nicolson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E.)


Cole, Norman
Holland-Martin, C. J.
Nield, Basil (Chester)


Colegate, W. A.
Hollis, M. C.
Noble, Cmdr. A. H. P.


Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Holmes, Sir Stanley (Harwich)
Nugent, G. R. H.


Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert
Hope, Lord John
Nutting, Anthony


Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.
Oakshott, H. D.


Cranborne, Viscount
Horobin, I. M.
Odey, G. W.


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Antrim, N.)


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.


Crouch, R. F.
Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)
Orr, Capt L. P. S.


Crowder, John E. (Finchley)
Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)
Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)


Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)
Hulbert, Wing Cmdr. N. J.
Orr-Ewing, Ian L. (Weston-super-Mare)


Darling, Sir William (Edinburgh, S.)
Hurd, A. R.
Osborne, C.


Davidson, Viscountess
Hutchinson, Sir Geoffrey (Ilford, N.)
Partridge, E.


De la Bère, R.
Hutchison, Lt.-Com. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)
Perkins, W. R. D.


Deedes, W. F.
Hutchison, James (Scotstoun)
Peto, Brig. C. H. M.


Digby, S. Wingfield
Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.
Peyton, J. W. W.


Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Jenkins, R. C. D. (Dulwich)
Pickthorn, K. W. M.




Pilkington, Capt. R. A.
Snadden, W. McN
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Pitman, I. J.
Soames, Capt. C.
Vane, W. M. F.


Powell, J. Enoch
Spearman, A. C. M.
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)
Speir, R. M.
Vosper, D. F.


Profumo, J. D.
Spence, H. R. (Aberdeenshire, W.)
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Raikes, H. V.
Spens, Sir Patrick (Kensington, S.)
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (Marylebone)


Rayner, Brig. R.
Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard
Walker-Smith, D. C.


Remnant, Hon. P.
Stevens, G. P.
Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)


Renton, D. L. M.
Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)


Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)
Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.


Roper, Sir Harold
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.
Watkinson, H. A.


Russell, R. S.
Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)
Wellwood, W.


Ryder, Capt. R. E. D.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)
White, Baker (Canterbury)


Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur
Summers, G. S.
Williams, Rt. Hon. Charles (Torquay)


Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.
Sutcliffe, H.
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Schofield, Lt.-Col. W. (Rochdale)
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)
Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)


Scott, R. Donald
Teeling, W.
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.
Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)
Wills, G.


Shepherd, William
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)
Wood, Hon. R.


Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter
Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N.
York, C.


Smithers, Peter (Winchester)
Tilney, John



Smithers, Sir Waldron (Orpington)
Touche, G. C.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Smyth, Brig J. G. (Norwood)
Turner, H. F. L.
Mr. Studholme and Mr. Redmayne.




NOES


Acland, Sir Richard
de Freitas, Geoffrey
Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)


Adams, Richard
Deer, G.
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)


Albu, A. H.
Dodds, N. N.
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Donnelly, D. L.
Hynd, H. (Accrington)


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Driberg, T. E. N.
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)


Anderson, Alexander (Motherwell)
Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John (W. Bromwich)
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)


Anderson, Frank (Whitehaven)
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Irving, W. J. (Wood Green)


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Edelman, M.
Janner, B.


Awbery, S. S.
Edwards, John (Brighouse)
Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.


Ayles, W. H.
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Jager, George (Goole)


Bacon, Miss Alice
Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)
Jenkins, R. H. (Stechford)


Baird, J.
Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)
Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)


Balfour, A.
Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
Jones, David (Hartlepool)


Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.
Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)
Jones, Frederick Elwyn (West Ham, S.)


Bellenger, Rt. Hon F. J.
Ewart, R.
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)


Bence, C. R.
Fernyhough, E.
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)


Bann, Wedgwood
Field, W. J.
Keenan, W.


Benson, G.
Fienburgh, W.
Kenyon, C.


Beswick, F.
Finch, H. J.
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Fletcher, Eric (Islington, E.)
King, Dr. H. M.


Bing, G. H. C.
Follick, M.
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)


Blackburn, F.
Foot, M. M.
Lever, Harold (Cheatham)


Blenkinsop, A.
Forman, J. C.
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)


Blyton, W. R.
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Lewis, Arthur


Boardman, H.
Freeman, John (Watford)
Lindgren, G. S.


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Freeman, Peter (Newport)
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.


Bowden, H. W.
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
Logan, D. G.


Bowles, F. G.
Gibson, C. W.
Longden, Fred (Small Heath)


Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Glanville, James
MacColl, J. E.


Brockway, A. F.
Gooch, E. G.
McGhee, H. G.


Brook, Dryden (Halifax)
Gordon, Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
McGovern, J.


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Greenwood, Anthony (Rossendale)
McInnes, J.


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur (Wakefield)
McKay, John (Wallsend)


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
McLeavy, F.


Burke, W. A.
Grey, C. F.
MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)


Burton, Miss F. E.
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigs)


Callaghan, L. J.
Griffiths, William (Exchange)
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)


Carmichael, J.
Grimond, J.
Mann, Mrs. Jean


Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Manuel, A. C.


Champion, A. J.
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.


Chapman, W. D.
Hall, John (Gateshead, W.)
Mayhew, C. P.


Chetwynd, G. R.
Hamilton, W. W.
Mellish, R. J.


Clunie, J.
Hannan, W.
Messer, F.


Cocks, F. S.
Hardy, E. A.
Mikardo, Ian


Coldrick, W.
Hargreaves, A.
Mitchison, G. R.


Collick, P. H.
Harrison, J. (Nottingham, E.)
Monslow, W.


Cook, T. F.
Hastings, S.
Moody, A. S.


Cove, W. G.
Hayman, F. H.
Morgan, Dr. H. B. W.


Craddock, George (Bradford, S)
Healey, Denis (Leeds, S.E.)
Morley, R.


Crossland, C. A. R.
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Rowley Regis)
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)


Crossman, R. H. S.
Herbison, Miss M.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, S.)


Cullen, Mrs. A.
Hewitson, Capt. M.
Mort, D. L.


Daines, P.
Hobson, C. R.
Moyle, A.


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Holman, P.
Mulley, F. W.


Davies, A. Edward (Stoke, N.)
Holt, A. F.
Murray, J. D.


Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
Houghton, Douglas
Nally, W.


Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)
Hoy, J. H.
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)







Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon P. J.
Schofield, S. (Barnsley)
Viant, S. P.


O'Brien, T.
Shackleton, E. A. A.
Wallace, H. W.


Oldfield, W. H.
Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir Hartley
Watkins, T. E.


Oliver, G. H.
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.
Webb, Rt. Hon M. (Bradford C.)


Orbach, M.
Short, E. W.
Weitzman, D.


Oswald, T.
Shurmer, P. L. E.
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Padley, W. E.
Silverman, Julius (Erdington)
Wells, William (Walsall)


Paget, R. T.
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)
West, D. G.


Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)
Slater, J.
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. John


Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)


Pannell, Charles
Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)


Parker, J.
Snow, J. W.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon W.


Paton, J.
Sorensen, R. W.
Wigg, George


Peart, T. F.
Soskice, Rt. Hon Sir Frank
Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.


Plummer, Sir Leslie
Sparks, J. A.
Wilkins, W. A.


Popplewell, E.
Steele, T.
Willey, Frederick (Sunderland, N.)


Porter, G.
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)
Willey, Octavius (Cleveland)


Price, Joseph T. (Westhoughton)
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.
Williams, David (Neath)


Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)
Strauss, Rt. Hon George (Vauxhall)
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)


Proctor, W. T.
Stross, Dr. Barnett
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


Pryde, D. J.
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.
Williams, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Don V'll'y)


Pursey, Cmdr H.
Swingler, S. T.
Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)


Rankin, John
Sylvester, G. O.
Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)


Reeves, J.
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Reid, Thomas (Swindon)
Taylor, John (West Lothian)
Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)


Reid, William (Camlachie)
Taylor, Rt. Hon. Robert (Morpeth)
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Rhodes, H.
Thomas, David (Aberdare)
Wyatt, W. L.


Robins, Rt. Hon. A.
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)
Yates, V. F.


Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)
Younger, Rt. Hon. K.


Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)
Thurtle, Ernest



Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)
Timmons, J.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Ross, William
Turner-Samuels, M.
Mr. Pearson and Mr. Holmes.


Royle, C.
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

Question put accordingly, "That the words 'drugs, medicines or' stand part of the Clause."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 281; Noes, 269.

Division No. 63.]
AYES
[9.50 p.m.


Aitken, W. T.
Butcher, H. W.
Fort, R.


Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)
Butler, Rt. Hon. R. A. (Saffron Walden)
Foster, John


Alpert, C. J. M.
Carr, Robert (Mitcham)
Fraser, Hon Hugh (Stone)


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
Carson, Hon. E.
Fraser, Sir Ian (Morecambe &amp; Lonsdale)


Amory, Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Cary, Sir Robert
Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir David Maxwell


Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.
Channon, H.
Gage, C. H.


Arbuthnot, John
Churchill, Rt. Hon W. S.
Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)


Ashton, H. (Chelmsford)
Clarke, Col. Ralph (East Grinstead)
Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)


Astor, Hon. J. J. (Plymouth, Sutton)
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W.)
Gammans, L. D.


Astor, Hon. W. W. (Bucks, Wycombe)
Clyde, Rt. Hon. J. L.
Garner-Evans, E. H.


Baker, P. A. D.
Cole, Norman
George, Rt. Hon. Maj. G. Lloyd


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.
Colegate, W. A.
Glyn, Sir Ralph


Baldwin, A. E.
Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Godber, J. B.


Banks, Col. C.
Cooper, Sqn. Ldr Albert
Gomme-Duncan, Col A.


Barber, A. P. L.
Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Gough, C. F. H.


Barlow, Sir John
Cranborne, Viscount
Gower, H. R.


Beach, Maj. Hicks
Crookshank, Capt Rt. Hon H. F. C.
Graham, Sir Fergus


Beamish, Maj. Tufton
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Gridley, Sir Arnold


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Crouch, R. F.
Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)


Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)
Crowder, John E. (Finchley)
Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)


Bennett, F. M. (Reading, N.)
Crowder, Petra (Ruislip—Northwood)
Harden, J. R. E.


Bennett, Sir Peter (Edgbaston)
Darling, Sir William (Edinburgh, S.)
Hare, Hon. J. H.


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)
Davidson, Viscountess
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)


Bennett, William (Woodside)
De la Bère, R.
Harris, Reader (Heston)


Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Deedes, W. F.
Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)


Birch, Nigel
Digby, S. Wingfield
Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfield)


Bishop, F. P.
Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Harvey, Ian (Harow, E.)


Blank, C. W.
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.
Harvie-Watt, Sir George


Boothby, R. J. G.
Donner, P. W.
Hay, John


Bossom, A. C.
Doughty, C. J. A.
Head, Rt. Hon. A. H.


Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Malcolm
Heald, Sir Lionel


Boyle, Sir Edward
Drewe, C.
Heath, Edward


Brains, B. R.
Dugdale, Maj. Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)
Henderson, John (Cathcart)


Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)
Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.
Higgs, J. M. C.


Braithwaite, Lt.-Cdr. G. (Bristol, N. W.)
Duthie, W. S.
Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)


Bromley-Davenport. Lt-Col. W. H.
Elliot, Rt. Hon W. E.
Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)


Brooman-White, R. C.
Erroll, F. J.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount


Browne, Jack (Govan)
Fell, A.
Hirst, Geoffrey


Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon P. G. T.
Finlay, Graeme
Holland-Marlin, C. J.


Bullard, D. G.
Fisher, Nigel
Hollis, M. C.


Bullock, Capt. M.
Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.
Holmes, Sir Stanley (Harwich)


Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.
Fletcher, Walter (Bury)
Hope, Lord John


Burden, F. F. A.
Fletcher-Cooke, C.
Hopkinson, Henry




Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter


Horobin, I. M.
Marples, A. E.
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)


Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence
Marshall, Douglas (Bedmin)
Smithers, Sir Waldron (Orpington)


Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)
Marshall, Sidney (Sutton)
Smyth, Brig. J. G. (Norwood)


Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)
Maudling, R.
Snadden, W. McN.


Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Soames, Capt. C.


Hulbert, Wing Cmdr. N. J.
Medlicott, Brig. F.
Spearman, A. C. M.


Hurd, A. R.
Mellor, Sir John
Speir, R. M.


Hutchinson, Sir Geoffrey (Ilford, N.)
Morrison John (Salisbury)
Spence, H. R. (Aberdeenshire, W.)


Hutchison, Lt.-Com. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)
Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.
Spens, Sir Patrick (Kensington, S.)


Hutchison, James (Scotstoun)
Nabarro, G. D. N.
Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard


Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.
Nicholls, Harmar
Stevens, G. P.


Jenkins, R. C. D. (Dulwich)
Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)
Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)


Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)
Nicolson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E.)
Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)


Jones, A. (Hall Green)
Nield, Basil (Chester)
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.
Noble, Cmdr. A. H. P.
Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)


Kaberry, D.
Nugent, G. R. H.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)


Kerr, H. W. (Cambridge)
Nutting, Anthony
Summers, G. S.


Lambert, Hon. G.
Oakshott, H. D.
Sutcliffe, H.


Lambton, Viscount
Odey, G. W.
Taylor, William (Bradford, N)


Lancaster, Col. C. G.
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Antrim, N.)
Teeling, W.


Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.
Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)


Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)


Legh, P. R. (Petersfield)
Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)


Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. A. T.
Orr-Ewing, Ian L. (Weston-super-Mare)
Tilney, John


Lindsay, Martin
Osborne, C.
Touche, G. C.


Linstead, H. N.
Partridge, E.
Turner, H. F. L.


Llewellyn, D. T.
Perkins, W. R. D.
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Peto, Brig. C. H. M.
Vane, W. M. F.


Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.
Peyton, J. W. W.
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


Longden, Gilbert (Herts, S.W.)
Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Vosper, D. F.


Low, A. R. W.
Pilkington, Capt. R. A.
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)
Pitman, I. J.
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (Marylebone)


Lucas, P. B. (Brantford)
Powell, J. Enoch
Walker-Smith, D. C.


Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)
Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)


McAdden, S. J.
Profumo, J. D.
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)


McCallum, Major D.
Raikes, H. V.
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.


McCorquodale, Rt. Hon. M. S.
Rayner, Brig. R.
Watkinson, H. A.


Macdonald, Sir Peter (I. of Wight)
Remnant, Hon. P.
Wellwood, W.


Mackeson, Brig. H. R.
Renton, D. L. M.
White, Baker (Canterbury)


McKibbin, A. J.
Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)
Williams, Rt. Hon. Charles (Torquay)


McKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Robson-Brown, W.
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Maclay, Hon. John
Roper, Sir Harold
Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)


Maclean, Fitzroy
Russell, R. S.
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


MacLeod, Iain (Enfield, W.)
Ryder, Capt. R. E. D.
Wills, G.


MacLeod, John (Ross and Cromarty)
Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)
Sandys, Rt. Hon D.
Wood, Hon. R.


Macpherson, Maj. Niall (Dumfries)
Schofield, Lt.-Col. W. (Rochdale)
York, C.


Maitland, Comdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)
Scott, R. Donald



Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)
Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Manningham-Buller, Sir R. E.
Shepherd, William
Mr. Studholme and Mr. Redmayne


Markham, Major S. F.
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)





NOES


Acland, Sir Richard
Brook, Dryden (Halifax)
Dodds, N. N.


Adams, Richard
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Donnelly, D. L.


Albu, A. H.
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Driberg, T. E. N.


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Dugdale, Rt. Hon John (W. Bromwich)


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Burke, W. A.
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.


Anderson, Alexander (Motherwell)
Burton, Miss F. E.
Edelman, M.


Anderson, Frank (Whitehaven)
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)
Edwards, John (Brighouse)


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Callaghan, L. J.
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)


Awbery, S. S.
Carmichael, J.
Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)


Ayles, W. H.
Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)


Bacon, Miss Alice
Champion, A. J.
Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)


Baird, J.
Chapman, W. D.
Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)


Balfour, A.
Chetwynd, G. R.
Ewart, R.


Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.
Clunie, J.
Fernyhough, E.


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Cocks, F. S.
Field, W. J.


Bence, C. R.
Coldrick, W.
Fienburgh, W.


Benn, Wedgwood
Collick, P. H.
Finch, H. J.


Benson, G.
Cook, T. F.
Fletcher, Eric (Islington. E.)


Beswick, F.
Cove, W. G.
Follick, M.


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A (Ebbw Vale)
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Foot, M. M.


Bing, G. H. C.
Crosland, C. A. R.
Forman, J. C.


Blackburn, F.
Crossman, R. H. S.
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)


Blenkinsop, A.
Cullen, Mrs. A.
Freeman, John (Watford)


Blyton, W. R.
Daines, P.
Freeman, Peter (Newport)


Boardman, H.
Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Davies, A. Edward (Stoke, N.)
Gibson, C. W.


Bowden, H. W.
Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
Glanville, James


Bowles, F. G.
Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)
Gooch, E. G.


Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
de Freitas, Geoffrey
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.


Brockway, A. F.
Deer, G.
Greenwood, Anthony (Rossendale)







Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur (Wakefield)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigs)
Shurmer, P. L. E.


Grey, C. F.
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Silverman, Julius (Erdington)


Griffiths, David (Rather Valley)
Mann, Mrs. Jean
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)


Griffiths, Rt. Hon James (Llanelly)
Manuel, A. C.
Slater, J.


Griffiths, William (Exchange)
Marquand, Rt. Hon H. A.
Smith, Ellis (Stoke S.)


Grimond, J.
Mayhew, C. P.
Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)


Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Mellish, R. J.
Snow, J. W.


Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Messer, F.
Sorensen, R. W.


Hall, John (Gateshead, W.)
Mikardo, Ian
Soskice, Rt. Hon Sir Frank


Hamilton, W. W.
Mitchison, G. R.
Sparks, J. A.


Hannan, W.
Monslow, W.
Steele, T.


Hardy, E. A.
Moody, A. S.
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)


Hargreaves, A.
Morgan, Dr. H. B. W.
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.


Harrison, J. (Nottingham, E.)
Morley, R.
Strauss, Rt. Hon George (Vauxhall)


Hastings, S.
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
Stross, Dr. Barnett


Hayman, F. H.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, S.)
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.


Healey, Denis (Leeds, S. E.)
Mort, D. L.
Swingler, S. T.


Henderson, Rt. Hon. A (Rowley Regis)
Moyle, A.
Sylvester, G. O.


Herbison, Miss M.
Mulley, F. W.
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Hewitson, Capt M.
Murray, J. D.
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


Hobson, C. R.
Nally, W.
Taylor, Rt. Hon. Robert (Morpeth)


Holman, P.
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)
Thomas, David (Aberdare)


Holt, A. F.
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon P. J.
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)


Houghton, Douglas
O'Brien, T.
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)


Hoy, J. H.
Oldfield, W. H.
Thurtle, Ernest


Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)
Oliver, G. H.
Timmons, J.


Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Orbach, M.
Turner-Samuels, M.


Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Oswald, T.
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn


Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Padley, W. E.
Viant, S. P.


Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Paget, R. T.
Wallace, H. W.


Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)
Watkins, T. E.


Irving, W. J. (Wood Green)
Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
Webb, Rt. Hon. M. (Bradforn, G.)


Janner, B.
Pannell, Charles
Weitzman, D.


Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.
Pargiter, G. A.
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Jager, George (Goole)
Parker, J.
Wells, William (Walsall)


Jenkins, R. H. (Stechford)
Paton, J.
West, D. G.


Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)
Peart, T. F.
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. John


Jones, David (Hartlepool)
Plummer, Sir Leslie
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)


Jones, Frederick Elwyn (West Ham, S.)
Popplewell, E.
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)


Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Porter, G.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Price, Joseph T. (Westhoughton)
Wigg, George


Keenan, W.
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)
Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.


Kenyon, C.
Proctor, W. T.
Wilkins, W. A.


Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Pryde, D. J.
Willey, Frederick (Sunderland, N.)


King, Dr. H. M.
Pursey, Cmdr. H.
Willey, Octavius (Cleveland)


Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Rankin, John
Williams, David (Neath)


Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Reeves, J.
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)


Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Reid, Thomas (Swindon)
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


Lewis, Arthur
Reid, William (Camlachie)
Williams, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Don V'll'ry)


Lindgren, G. S.
Rhodes, H.
Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)


Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.
Roberts, Rt. Hon. A.
Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)


Logan, D. G.
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Longden, Fred (Small Heath)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)
Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)


MacColl, J. E.
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


McGhee, H. G.
Ross, William
Wyatt, W. L.


McGovern, J.
Royle, C.
Yates, V. F.


McInnes, J.
Schofield, S. (Barnsley)
Younger, Rt. Hon K.


McKay, John (Wallsend)
Shackleton, E. A. A.



McLeavy, F.
Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir Hartley
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.
Mr. Pearson and Mr. Holmes.


MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Short, E. W.



Bill read the Third time, and passed.

To report Progress, and ask leave to sit again.—[Mr. Redmayne.]


Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — ARMY AND AIR FORCE (ANNUAL) BILL

Considered in Committee. [Progress, 2nd April.]

[Colonel Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Clause 7.—(NEW PROVISIONS WITH RESPECT TO ENLISTMENT.)

Amendment proposed [2nd April], in page 4, line 44, leave out "twenty-two," and insert "thirty."—[Mr. Wigg.]

Question again proposed, "That twenty-two' stand part of the Clause."

10.2 p.m.

The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Antony Head): I beg to move, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."

Mr. I. Mikardo: And ask leave for the right hon. Gentleman never to sit again.

Mr. Head: As a result, I hope, of what I have to say to the Committee, so far as this Bill is concerned the hon. Member's wishes may be gratified. I think that last night the discussion on this Measure took place, perhaps for both sides, at rather short notice. There has, however, now been an interval of about 24 hours, and I hope that I shall be able to explain to the Committee what has been the result of the further discussions through the usual channels.
I think that it was quite evident yesterday that there were two alternative courses before the Committee. The first was to sit up for a period of almost indefinable length in order to dispose of the very numerous Amendments now on the Order Paper. I think that every hon. Member would agree that in those circumstances the Committee would have ended very exhausted and with a Measure, an Army and Air Force (Annual) Act, which would still have been very misshapen and inadequate; and I do not think that any hon. Members would disagree on that point, despite the number of new Clauses tabled.
The other was to wait for the House to appoint a committee to have a radical review of the Act which is at present loaded with anachronisms. Further con-

versations have gone on through the usual channels. I hope that hon. Members opposite will find that what I say represents the substance of those conversations. I think they can be summarised as follows.
The Government would agree to set up a committee which would be charged with reviewing the Army and Air Force Act in order to amend it so that it would fulfil its function, which is to be a proper, adequate and up-to-date Act for the Army and the Air Force of today, that, manifestly, at the present moment it is not.
Now certain problems arise—and it was evident last night that they did arise—in setting up such a committee. The first, I think, is that if a committee is set up it has to do a great deal of detailed and expert work, and I think all hon. Members will agree that that necessitates the presence on the committee of experts, not only from the drafting point of view, such as Parliamentary Counsel, but experts on the legal and other sides from the Service Ministries concerned. We agree that it must also inevitably include Members of Parliament. But there are many hon. Members who feel that before such a Departmental and somewhat technical committee engages on this very formidable task it should be given very full terms of reference.
If that is to be done, it seems to me that there are two alternatives before us. The first is for the House itself to attempt to draft the terms of reference for the Departmental committee, and I do not believe that is a task which we could easily fulfil on the Floor of the House. The Government are quite open-minded about this point, and appreciate that hon. Members feel that certain policy decisions should be made before the Departmental committee starts to work.
It may well be that the best method of fulfilling that requirement would be for a Select Committee to consider the general questions of policy and then refer them to the expert or Departmental committee. It might well be that that same Select Committee could then consider the report of the Departmental committee before it was submitted to the House. That is, so to speak, a sandwich, and the Government are entirely open-minded about how that is arrived at. I think the details can be discussed through


the usual channels, but, as I have stated, the kind of proposal which I have now indicated might well be the answer to this problem.
There is, I think, a second problem which is in the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and that concerns the date on which this Bill is considered. When we discussed this question of date two nights ago I think it was, we had no consideration before us then of appointing a committee with that task.
I will be quite frank, if I may, with hon. Gentlemen opposite. If no such committee is appointed, and if this Bill, in a somewhat improved but still very anachronistic form remains as it was, annually, it is, so to speak—and I think the former Leader of the House will agree with me—somewhat of a menace to Government business inasmuch as any opposition party, whoever was in power, could so attempt to amend it as to delay Government business for a very long time.
Today, with the possibility of this committee, the situation is considerably altered. We should be confronted, I hope by 1953, with a Bill which has been brought up to date, and with a Bill which is not a menace to Government business by the mention of brandy shops, sailing ships and other anachronisms. In those circumstances it would, I think, be perfectly possible to alter the date to that which hon. Gentlemen opposite wanted, namely, 31st July.
There was one other point about the question of altering the date, and that was the fact that it does need some amendment to the Bill of Rights, which now allows the Army Act to run for one year, and I in those circumstances would demand that it should run for 15 months. I have consulted my hon. and learned Friends and it is not anticipated that any difficulty will be found in achieving that.
I make one proviso here, which is that that will be included in the Report stage; that will be our attempt and effort. To any hon. Gentleman anxious on this score, I would point out that if that is not done before the Bill is through that fact does not in any way prevent the amendment of the date at any period after the passage of the Bill. I have ascertained that this alteration of date can be done at any time between now and when the Bill is re-introduced. The

Government do give the undertaking that when this Select Committee is set up that date should be altered.
There is a third point. As I understand it, the Opposition said that if we could arrive at a proposal—and this appears to me to be a very sound proposal—and both sides could get rid of what is really an embarrassment and could produce for the Army and Air Force an up-to-date and effective Bill, then they would agree that the new Clauses, which are very large in number and not all effective for immediate inclusion in the Bill, should be dropped.
That has been discussed through the usual channels, and that undertaking has been given, and, so far as I am concerned, I give an undertaking to the Committee that this Select Committee—in conjunction with the Secretary of State for Air—will be set up and that we will alter the date, and under those circumstances I understand that the Opposition will remove the new Clauses. That will leave before the Committee only those Amendments now proposed which are entirely or almost entirely concerned with the introduction of long-term enlistment in the Army of 22 years.
As I understood it, when we were discussing the Army Estimates, that proposal was welcomed on both sides of the House. Although, of course, we need some discussion on the machinery, I do not believe that it is a contentious or a particularly difficult matter for the Committee to reach agreement on. Therefore, I hope that if the right hon. Gentleman, when he speaks, confirms what I have said, we can proceed with the new Clauses upon which exploratory work would be of help to the Committee, and then proceed to the particular measures which concern the prolongation of engagement in the Army. I believe—and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will confirm this—that we shall find no difficulty in completing this business tonight, because on the legislation now before the Committee we are all agreed on the object, and the only task that lies before the Committee is to see if any particular improvements can be made. Under these circumstances, I feel confident that we can complete the business tonight and then refer these matters to the Select Committee, whereby we should be relieved of this incubus, and the Army and Air


Force would be assisted by having an up-to-date and adequate Bill.

Mr. John Strachey: I am sure that the Committee has heard the statement of the Secretary of State for War with satisfaction, and some of us with relief. After some sharp exchanges and some hard bargaining, a reasonable settlement has been arrived at, which will produce something of real value to the country and to the Army and Air Force.
I have no quarrel with the details of the statement made by the Secretary of State. As he knows, we could not say "Yes", on the nod, in favour of the two-tier system of committees which he proposed last night. He has now brought forward what I think is a revised version of his proposal, and an improved version of it, by which the original suggestion of a Select Committee is preserved. That Select Committee then devolves details to an expert committee and the matter comes back to the Select Committee. That is a satisfactory arrangement. We shall, of course, discuss composition, terms of reference and matters of that sort.
10.15 p.m.
We on this side of the Committee are particularly glad that it is now agreed that we can prolong the terminal date of the present Act. That is something which we thought from the beginning should have been conceded. It is a reasonable proposal and really will improve the way in which this House deals with this vitally important question of the conditions and legal status of National Service men and Regulars in the Army. The fact that a guillotine, as it were, does not come down on 30th April will be of real benefit. In those circumstances, I can say that the new Clauses, which certainly present a formidable picture on the Order Paper, will disappear from that position.
As to tonight's business, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, there are matters of real substance, perhaps the heart of the Government's proposals, to discuss tonight, but, with goodwill on both sides, I do not think they need detain us unduly long, though certainly we must not scamp their discussion. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would very much dislike it if we did, because they are of great

importance and I am sure he will agree that some of them are of potential benefit. Therefore, I think that this is a happy ending to quite a long struggle.

Mr. Geoffrey Bing: At this stage of the proceedings it is probably of value to the Committee to set out quite clearly the arrangements as we on this side of the Committee understand it. First of all, do not let us mince words. This is a complete capitulation by the Government to the point of view put forward from this side of the Committee. We suggested this plan. Originally it was turned down. At a later stage the Secretary of State for War will no doubt lead his flock through the Lobby to vote against the very proposals for which they voted two days ago and to do which he kept them sitting up all night. If it is leadership to keep one's party sitting here to vote one day for something against which one is to vote the next, we ought really to consider who deals with these matters.
However, that is not the point that we need consider at this moment. What we ought to do is to consider what has happened in regard to this Measure in order to make certain that such mistakes do not happen again. Let us be quite clear about the terms. First of all, a Select Committee is to be appointed. We all agree that it would probably be undesirable to have a long debate upon the terms of reference of the Select Committee, and I hope they will all be agreed through the usual channels and perhaps go through "on the nod."
But is it quite clearly understood by the Patronage Secretary and by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health that when the report comes back to the House we shall have a day to discuss it? Let that be quite clearly understood. I say it now and give the right hon. Genie-man an opportunity to correct me if I am wrong: a day will be given for the discussion of the report of the Select Committee. Then an Amendment will be proposed at the earliest possible moment in the same words as was proposed from this side of the Committee.
I want to say a word about our later proceedings tonight. It was not quite clear to me whether the Secretary of State for War intended to take all the remaining stages. We should, of course, be quite


agreeable to that, but there is a very important point of principle here. I am glad to see here the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond). I gave his notice that I should be raising this matter.
I suggest it is quite improper for two great parties in this House to over-ride a small minority. I am sure that the Leader of the House will tell us whether he bothered to consult the Liberal Party about these arrangements. The Liberal hon. Members all voted against the Labour Party Clause on grounds of conscience. The Tories, quite naturally, are only too prepared on ground of expediency to vote down what they voted for two days ago. But not so the Liberal Party. They are actuated throughout, as are some of my hon. Friends occasionally, by conscience.
Under those circumstances the Liberal Party made a decision of conscience, on what grounds I do not know, that 30th April was the right day on which the Army Act should expire. It was not in arrangement with the Conservative Party but purely as an independent organisation that they went into the Lobby to vote for it. I have spoken to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) about this. He is not here now, but he told me that I could tell the Committee that he had no word of these matters at all. I think that is a little discourteous on the part of the Leader of the House. All the time he seeks Liberal support, and he ought to treat the Liberals as an independent body and not as a species of Tory fellow-travellers.
This small and honest party voted on the grounds of conscience, quite apart from the bare ground of expediency which animated hon. Gentlemen opposite, for 30th April rather than 31st July and it would be quite wrong, in my view—and when Mr. Speaker resumes the Chair I shall raise it as a point of order, which I am entitled to do—for the House, which ought to protect the rights of minorities, to decide this matter by a manuscript Amendment without giving the Liberal Party an opportunity to say whether or not they are going to stick to what they voted for before.
No doubt we shall hear from the representative of the Liberal Party whether

they propose to vote the same way tonight. The Conservative Party have changed their mind, and we wonder if the Liberals will change theirs automatically or whether they have an independent policy. If they have, I give this pledge to the Leader of the House—and I think I am speaking for all my hon. Friends—we will be in the Lobby behind him. We will honour our agreement and go into the Lobby behind the right hon. Gentleman and vote down the Liberal Party if, of course, enough hon. Members of that party stay until the matter comes up.
We will vote down the Liberal Party because we, on this side of the House, believe in voting the same way. Hon. Members opposite have decided to change their minds, and they will now come into the Lobby with us. We ought to have an ample majority. I do not need to be worried about carrying the Measure, but it is a question of principle. It is wrong of this Committee to agree blindly to take the remaining stages of the Bill and make a major change, a matter which two days ago the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House thought was so important that he had all his party here with a three-line whip to vote in favour of taking. Now they are here to vote against it.
He cannot deny that there may be some who have conscientious scruples on the matter. I know that he and about 99 per cent. of his party have not. But there may be one or two who may have some views on the principle of the matter, and, therefore, he ought to give them the opportunity to exercise their conscience if they decide to vote from their own point of view.

Mr. Head: The hon. and learned Gentleman is making great play with the alteration, but he is entirely ignoring something which I said during my remarks, which is that when we first considered this case it was entirely on the assumption that the Bill would remain, broadly speaking, in the same condition as that in which it rests today. When we were considering this arrangement it was on the assumption that a committee would be appointed which would bring it up to date. Even the hon. and learned Member, for all his ebullience, must surely realise that an amended Bill would


be considerably less a menace to Parliamentary business than the existing Bill, amended by the Clauses on the Paper.

Mr. Bing: I am afraid for the right hon. Gentleman, for up to now he has treated us reasonably and we had some hopes of him. He ought to consult a calendar and see on what date Easter Sunday is next year. He will find that it falls on 5th April. This Bill has to be submitted to the House of Lords. That is the argument that is being put to us—to complete all the Clauses so that the Bill gets to the House of Lords by that date to give the other place ample time to consider it; but the Bill may not be taken until 31st March next year. If the Budget is taken at the normal time, there will be no days on which to consider the Army Act next year.
The argument is that the Bill is so full of anomalies that we have no time left to consider it. The right hon. Gentleman himself said in debate that what we had tabled was not half, or even one-tenth, sufficient to cover the point. We all appreciate the efforts of the right hon. Gentleman to cover up the bad leadership to which he is subjected from the Minister of Health. It is not his fault that the Committee is treated to this ridiculous display through the inability of the Minister of Health to assist the business.
What did the Minister of Health say when the matter was raised a week ago on business? He proposed that we should deal with the Bill, with all its anomalies, in one day, and then take the Second Reading of the Marine and Aviation Insurance (War Risks) Bill. I might mention to him that it will take the House at least a day to complete the Second Reading of that Bill.
That is no sort of leadership. It results from the fact that the party opposite did not have a majority in the country as a whole. Only by the working of our electoral law have they a comparatively small majority in this House. They are simply not able to force through a whole series of contentious matters, because in the working of our democratic system the most they can do is to keep things going as they are.
I warn hon. Gentlemen opposite that if they attempt to use up the time of

the House which should be used on our day-to-day business by taking contentious matter, they will not be able to get through their day-to-day business within the statutory limits which are open to them.
We have been more anxious to secure justice to the soldier than to secure an advantage over hon. Gentlemen opposite. Why on earth otherwise should we have agreed to a compromise of this sort? Why should we not have been prepared to keep hon. Gentlemen opposite sitting here night after night? Of course we could have done it.

Mr. Philip Bell: Why does the hon. and learned Gentleman say that he is a better judge of justice for the soldier than is anybody else?

Mr. Bing: Because for 25 years, when hon. Gentlemen opposite were in office, they never did anything to reform the Army Act, and when they had an opportunity of six years in opposition they never did anything either. The reforms follow logically and properly from the reforms introduced by the late Labour Government. The first thing that the late Labour Government did was to reduce the appalling disparity between the officer and the soldier. Therefore, all the social punishments which the Army Act inflicts, such as cashiering, as compared to two years' imprisonment, have ceased to be a deterrent. Cashiering meant that the officer could not get into the best clubs and was shunned by his friends. The sort of people we have as officers now do not have the sort of friends who frequent the sort of social circles that hon. Gentlemen opposite do.
10.30 p.m.
Therefore, all these things had become out-of-date, and after six years, we were approaching the second stage of the problem. We reformed the whole of the court-martial procedure; we produced a White Paper with proposals for actual reforms of the Army Act, but not a single one was incorporated by the Secretary of State in his Bill as he produced it. It is no use hon. Members opposite saying that we have done nothing. The Amendments were to carry out proposals made in the time of the Labour Government. If the hon. Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Philip Bell), who interrupted wants, to do something in favour of the soldier, he


might at least learn the facts of the situation.
I am quite prepared to withdraw the many Amendments I have placed on the Paper, but I feel this should be a lesson to us. I say to the Leader of the House that I feel he should get on with the Customs and Excise Bill because he may find himself in similar difficulties over the Finance Act. I think he should be very careful what he tells his hon. Friends behind him, because they will get a little annoyed if he brings them in to vote one way one day and another the next.
I know that the whole House is anxiously waiting for the statement which, I take it, will be made by the Liberal Chief Whip who, through the unfortunate and, I think, gross rudeness of the Leader of the House, apparently was not consulted in this matter at all. Are the Liberal Party to stick by their original decision or be fellow travellers with the Government, and if they abandon their original position, on what grounds are they to do so? The country needs to know because of the Liberal vote, and the hon. Gentleman is an independent man and can get a lot of votes because he sticks by its principles. Let us hear from the Liberal Chief Whip whether they intend to do so today.

Mr. J. Grimond: I am very seldom pressed to speak, but I gladly accept. The hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) was good enough to inform me that he had some very important points to raise this evening, and when I had some inkling of what was afoot I knew that what was uppermost in his mind would be "Was justice being done to the Liberal Party?" I had not the slightest doubt that that was the first thought that would come into his mind when he heard this arrangement.
He made certain remarks about the conscience of the Liberal Party. I cannot speak for the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies), but on the occasion in question I was wrestling with my conscience. I was wrestling so hard that I missed the Division. So I stand here, not exactly in a white sheet, but in a moderately grey one, I neither voted for nor against the date. The whiteness of my sheet is added to by the fact that I cannot be

accused of entering the House on Conservative votes. Whatever else got me here, it was certainly not that. I sometimes wonder what it was but it was not that.
Another thing I am seldom accused of is being a "usual channel." I am at best a small, clogged and most unusual channel. It is perfectly true that very little water, or whatever flows through channels, has flowed, through mine today about this agreement. But, small and unusual as I may be, I have always been treated with the utmost courtesy and goodwill not only by the present Government channels, but also by the channels of the Opposition.
If it will set the mind of the hon. and learned Member at rest and enable the House to get on with its business—and I realise that all hon. Members are waiting for the Liberal Party point of view—I may say that I am prepared on this occasion to give my blessing to the agreement. The Liberal Party has given it very careful consideration and after consulting their conscience, they are prepared to accept it. The Secretary of State for War has indicated that the circumstances have changed and we have taken that into very close consideration. So for the time being we assent. But we shall be watching.
But, as the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch has pointed out, there will be future occasions on which this can be disowned. We shall be watching the conduct not only of the Government but of the Opposition on those occasions. I might say, that I was rather surprised that the official Opposition should raise this point at this particular time. It is only quite recently that in this House matters were raised concerning Seretse Khama, and it did seem to me then that there was a certain change in the attitude of the official Opposition. It was a subtle change, a certain difference in outlook and in atmosphere. Taking that as a precedent, we feel on this occasion we are prepared to let this matter pass and preserve our views and opinions for future occasions.

Mr. George Wigg: I am somewhat surprised that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Horn-church (Mr. Bing), in his interesting


speech, did not make an effort to find out the opinions of his friends from Northern Ireland, because one of the Clauses in the Bill, but for this arrangement, would have concerned Eire. But my hon. and learned Friend is apparently satisfied that Irish opinion will not be outraged by this arrangement, and, therefore, on this score, we can call honours even.
There is one point I should like to make. I wonder if I can have the attention of the Secretary of State. I thought that this evening he made a very useful statement. Indeed, if I may go so far, I should say it is the first time since he became Secretary of State for War that he has made some sign of following in the footsteps of the late Lord Haldane.
As a result of these few first halting footsteps, it may be that in future he will know that one of the requirements of the Secretary of State for War is a willingness to learn from the Opposition. That was part of Lord Haldane's method. He got in touch with all shades of opinion and managed to build up a policy almost without his own party knowing it, because he had a vigorous Opposition. One of his most vigorous opponents was the present Prime Minister. He was shrewd enough to know that if he was to get the kind of Army the country wanted, he had to take into account the minority opinions.
If the present Secretary of State had been ready to take advice from the Opposition, he would not be in the difficult position in which he is in tonight. I do not want to rub it in or make party points. We have plenty of time during the night to deal with the remaining Clauses, but I am glad that this matter has been settled. I am pleased that the views of the Labour Party have triumphed.
I am certain that as a result of this arrangement the Army will have an Act which is much more in accordance with the needs of the nation. For the first time during the seven years we have been in the House of Commons, the Secretary of State for War and myself are agreed, perhaps for a fleeting moment, and perhaps he will not think it amiss if I sincerely congratulate him on his change of heart this evening.

Mr. Head: I feel that on this most auspicious, remarkable and unusual occasion, it would perhaps be suitable for me to intervene and, in view of what I understand to be the very sensible attitude taken by hon. Members opposite, the Liberal Party and, I suggest, ourselves, to say that this might be a suitable moment to withdraw the Motion. We have many important matters to discuss and, therefore, by your leave, Sir Charles, and that of all hon. Members, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. James Simmons: There is one important point I wish to mention. I pointed out, I think last night but, at any rate, recently, that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) and myself are the only two Members of this Committee who have not held commissioned rank. I have felt that, in the discussions, there might have been a tendency for the point of view of the commissioned ranks to be over-emphasised.
When the Minister is considering this Departmental committee, I hope that he will see that other ranks are adequately represented. I take it that on this committee there will be Members of Parliament and people drawn from the War Office. If that is so, as the only ex-private in this Committee who never rose above that rank, I plead with the Minister to ensure that both the private and the non-commissioned officer shall have adequate representation both on the Select Committee and on the Departmental committee.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: There is one reason why the Secretary of State for War ought not to have the leave of the Committee to withdraw his Motion to report Progress until every hon. Member who wishes to do so has spoken on it. The reason is that the Secretary of State has referred to various conversations which have taken place through the usual channels. But, of course, this proposal is one which in fact affects every private Member in this Committee. In particular, it affects everybody who has put down proposals for a new Clause.
This arrangement cannot be carried out unless everybody who has put down a new Clause assents to it. Therefore, in order that the procedure may be kept right, I want to put this point to the Minister: I happen to have put down suggestions for six or seven new Clauses, all of which are intended to give effect to precise recommendations of the Lewis Committee for improvements in court-martial procedure. The only object of these new Clauses is to ensure that the recommendations made by a most eminent and distinguished Committee, presided over by a judge of the High Court, may be put into operation as soon as possible.
I understood from rumours I heard that most of those proposals were likely to be accepted by the Government. Therefore, in the ordinary course of events. I was hoping that these recommendations, made a year ago, would have been accepted and would have been incorporated in the Army Act to be renewed at the end of April.
Now, I am being asked either to withdraw those new Clauses or to give an undertaking that they will not be pressed when they are called. I am not sure precisely what the procedure will be, but I gather that they all have to be called and either not moved or not pressed. I have put down only a few new Clauses, and if they were the only ones on the Order Paper, I do not think that the Secretary of State would have any justification in asking me to withdraw them.
10.45 p.m.
Of course, it is not my fault that a number of my hon. Friends, for equally good reasons, have put down a number of suggestions of their own for other and different improvements in the Army Act. Therefore, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) pointed out, the Government have had to capitulate tonight, not only to proposals of the Opposition, but to a number of proposals put down by a large number of private Members of this House.
Speaking for myself, I think that the decision which the Secretary of State has announced is a sensible one. I would have preferred his proposal to have been made unconditionally and not on condition that the new Clauses were with-

drawn. The statesmanlike step for him to have taken would have been to announce quite unconditionally the appointment of a Select Committee. If he had done that I am sure that most of my hon. Friends would have fallen in with his wishes.
I do not regard this as an appropriate subject for bargaining between the usual channels, because it is something more than that. It is a matter in which the rights and duties of every private Member to try to improve the legislation embodied in the Army Act is involved. Therefore, before the right hon. Gentleman withdraws his Motion, I want to make my own position clear, and to indicate that, in accordance with his wishes and relying on the assurance he has given, I. speaking for myself alone, am prepared, when the new Clauses to which I have referred are called, not to press them.

Mr. Michael Stewart: I think it would be helpful if the right hon. Gentleman were to say explicitly something which was fully implicit in all he has said. He mentioned one or two what we might call minor, trivial, technical anachronisms in the Army Act. It is clear that what is envisaged here is not merely a tidying up of what might be called certain technical anachronisms in the Act, important as that job is, but a revision of the Act, bearing in mind the changes which have been made in this country over a considerable period of time; changes in the social climate of the country and the many changes that follow from the fact that we now have compulsory National Service. Indeed, it is not merely a technical tidying up, but a thorough modernisation. I am sure that was in his mind, and I think it would help if that could be stated explicitly for the record.

Mr. Stephen Swingler: I think that some hon. Members are still not clear about the procedure. As I understand it, the Minister, in his statement, said it was intended to take all the stages of the Bill tonight, or that the Government are proposing to try to do so. Is it intended, as part of this settlement or bargain, that those who, like myself, have put down new Clauses, should withdraw them on the Committee stage?
I should also like to know whether a manuscript Amendment is to be produced on Report stage about this question of the date? The Secretary of State gave a firm assurance, it seems to me, that it would be changed, but I am still not clear whether it is proposed during the proceedings tonight to produce some kind of manuscript Amendment, or whether the right hon. Gentleman suggests he is definitely putting that in to the Select Committee. We do not know the terms of reference of this Select Committee or its composition.
We on this side of the Committee are making considerable concessions. We are withdrawing all these new Clauses and we are not at all certain of the nature of the proposals which the right hon. Gentleman said he was going to bring forward. Before we continue with the remaining stages of the Bill, I should like to know whether the Minister is expecting that we shall withdraw our new Clauses and whether he will produce a manuscript Amendment, or, if not, what it will be, and whether we can now hear anything more precise about the terms of reference and composition of the Committee?

Mr. Head: Perhaps it would be for the convenience of the Committee if I answered, briefly, the points put before me. The hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) has, as I well know, put many Amendments which follow from the Lewis Committee report. These Amendments have been carefully examined, and if they had been entirely applicable to the Bill, I would have accepted them tonight. But, to take an extract from the Lewis Report, and put down an Amendment dealing with it, would not, I submit, always ensure that that Amendment is applicable, or drafted in such a way that it could be readily assimilated. The hon. Member's actual drafting is not acceptable, for that reason I cannot accept his new Clauses.
I was also asked by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler) about the proposed new Clauses. I do not know if he was here when I made my preliminary remarks. I said that the Committee has two alternatives; to attempt to introduce into a Bill which is admittedly out-of-date and mis-shapen, many new Clauses needing, in some cases,

much alteration before they are acceptable; or, following the agreement for the institution of the Committee, these new Clauses should be withdrawn, although they will still be available for the Committee to consider in principle.
The hon. Member for Fulham, East (Mr. M. Stewart) asked about general policy before the Committee carried out detailed examination. I told the House that we are aware of that problem, and the Departmental committee, if hon. Members feel strongly on the matter, might well be preceded by a Select Committee which could lay down certain broad matters of principle for the guidance of the committee which will be entering into the detailed examinations.
The only other point, I think, was the date, and the alteration of the date is because, originally, we proposed it without envisaging any possibility of the committee examination being introduced. But, under present circumstances, the date is agreed, land the Government have given an assurance; although it is not a simple matter which could be treated by way of a manuscript Amendment.
We are doing something more than altering the Act, and that is to extend the Act for the following year for from 12 to 15 months, and that needs more than can be accomplished by means of a manuscript Amendment. I have taken advice, and am also given the assurance of the Law Officers that this can be accomplished, and I hope hon. Members will now feel that we have reached the stage where I can withdraw my Motion.

Mr. Strachey: Would not the other place be the appropriate means by which to effect this Amendment?

Mr. Head: If we can get this matter cleared up by the Law Officers and the expert advisers, and can refer it to another place, then we shall adopt that course.
I know that hon. Members are anxious about this, but I would point out there is no cause for anxiety; that if it is not done in another place, it is not lost for a year because it is within our capacity to amend the date at any time during the year by an Amendment. I would assure hon. Members that they need have no anxiety about the Government's undertaking.

Mr. E. Fletcher: Before the right hon. Gentleman sits down, may I say that I think the substance of what he says is undoubtedly acceptable to my hon. Friends and myself? But there is one technical point. That is whether the new Clauses should be formally withdrawn, which might be a little difficult because it involves getting the consent of every individual hon. Member. I suggest that they should be formally put, but not spoken on and, if that is done, they will all appear on the record in HANSARD. Some of my hon. Friends and I would much prefer that the new Clauses should be set out in HANSARD, although not debated, rather than they should be withdrawn.

Mr. Ede: Might I make an appeal to my hon. Friend that we should not put ourselves to all that trouble to reach what is a very simple end? All these Clauses have appeared on the Order Paper. I understand that we shall reach a stage this evening, when we have ended the discussion on the Clauses of the Bill, when we shall get to the new Clauses. If, when the first one is called which has a certain hon. Member's name to it, he would rise and say, "I do not propose to move this, or any other of the new Clauses standing in my name," that would be the speediest way of getting rid of it. I would hope that the hon. Members whose names follow on the Order Paper need not be present in the Committee at that particular moment so as to entail half-a-dozen people getting up and repeating the same formula.
I think that the Secretary of State for War has met us quite handsomely in this matter. He has shown tonight a patience in dealing with a number of detailed questions that proves he is, as I told him a few months ago, a very great Parliamentarian. I thank him for the way in which he has dealt with this matter. We have his word tonight, and I am certain that he and the Leader of the House will see to it that the promises which have been made will be implemented in detail.
With regard to this question of the date, I accept the right hon. Gentleman's word for it that there are difficulties over the Bill of Rights. I got into some trouble myself over the Bill of Rights. I looked to find where I had broken it, but could not find that I had done so, and looking

at the Bill, I imagine it is the Mutiny Act, and not the Bill of Rights, that is the real trouble in this matter.
We live in this House together, and I hope we may now proceed to the discussion of the existing Clauses, and that, when we reach the new Clauses, we shall find some way of dealing with them expeditiously. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) that he can keep his Order Paper to be sure all these new Clauses are considered.

Mr. E. Fletcher: Of course, I can keep my Order Paper, but everybody knows that HANSARD is much more accessible than an Order Paper. All I ask is that this Select Committee shall be given a list of these Clauses, and if they are in HANSARD, that is more satisfactory.

Mr. Head: I am obliged to the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), for his remarks. I have discussed this question of a committee with many of those who will be concerned with the details of the examination, and I have also stated, both to this Committee and to them, that very many of the new Clauses are the result of considerable research work into this Bill and will be a considerable asset when it comes to be considered. I think the hon. Gentleman is unduly nervous if he thinks that this Order Paper will be lost. I give him the assurance that this Order Paper will be among the documents available to this committee.
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his suggestion that we should now continue, and I should like to pay great tribute to his common sense as an ex-sergeant major, to which I also paid tribute the other day: not only do they run the Army, but perhaps the House of Commons as well. I would now suggest that we might proceed to Clause 7, which I think involves the substantial and important section of the Amendments the Government propose.

11.0 p.m.

Mr. Aneurin Bevan: Before we proceed to that, is there any reason why the Government should not rest content with the situation we have reached and devote next Wednesday to the further stages of this Bill? There is no reason at all why we could not do that, and then we shall have an opportunity of reflecting on the matter, and everything could be put in order in the


meantime. I understand that next Tuesday is to be devoted to further consideration of the Committee stage of the National Health Service Bill.
There is no reason at all why we should not consider the Bill now before us at a seemly hour next Wednesday, when we shall have had a chance of considering this matter. I should have thought, now that we have reached so amiable a compromise, that nothing is lost by leaving the remainder of the Committee stage of the National Health Service Bill over until after the Easter Recess. The Government will get this Bill, as they want to and must, before the end of April. Why are they pressing us now at this late hour?

Mr. Head: I think that the right hon. Gentleman, who has not been present through all our discussions on this Bill, has not appreciated the enthusiasm of hon. Members who are interested in this Bill. I think we have all found, although we may be short of sleep, that on this Measure there has been great interest, and valuable contributions have been made. I think that if we now proceed to consider this Bill, for which hon. Members have got their notes and are all prepared, we shall make considerable progress, and, what is far more important, we shall be securing an Amendment proposed by the Government which the whole Committee believes is of great importance to the Army and Air Force of today. I think the right hon. Gentleman will be the first to agree that, if by recruitment and other measures we can improve their efficiency we should not spare ourselves in sleep in order expeditiously to get the Measure through.

Mr. Bevan: With all respect, that does not answer my question at all. I am suggesting that, if it is so important as that—and I accept that it is—it is much better to start discussion of it at half-past three in the afternoon rather than 11 o'clock at night. All the Secretary of State is suggesting to us is that we should devote the whole of the rest of the night and morning to a discussion of this Bill in order to give the Government the opportunity of having a second day on the Committee stage of the National Health Service Bill next week. But we are not as enthusiastic about the National

Health Service Bill as we are about this Bill.
There is no general enthusiasm about proceeding with the National Health Service Bill next Wednesday. I am therefore respectfully suggesting that, as the right hon. Gentleman is anxious, as we are, to give proper consideration to these Amendments, they ought to be taken at a time of day when our minds are fresh, and that we should postpone the National Health Service Bill until after the Easter Recess.

Mr. Head: The right hon. Gentleman is, by imputation, suggesting that his mind is stale. I think that there are two points here. I believe that the Committee could well take these Amendments now, and in the suggestions, which are the result of protracted discussion by both sides, it was felt—I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman was present when I made my original statement—that we should get on with the Bill. It has been said that there must be agreement between both sides as a whole, and it is extremely difficult for us to decide on this matter, but if the right hon. Gentleman were to pursue this line of argument he might well disrupt such agreement as we have reached.
What would be the consequence of that? We should end up, after a great many very long Sittings, with no Bill of any value at all and a great deal of heat engendered. Now, tonight, we have the opportunity of continuing this discussion—in which I do not think the right hon. Gentleman is particularly interested perse—and we have an opportunity of doing that, in my opinion, in considerable amity, because those who are particularly interested are present tonight. It seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman, is taking up a contentious attitude in which he suggests that the whole of this agreement should be thrown overboard by removing—

Mr. Bevan: No.

Mr. Head: The right hon. Gentleman, says "No," but it was part of the agreement through the usual channels that the Bill should be discussed tonight. I stated that clearly. Perhaps he was not listening.
Now the right hon. Gentleman, says to me, "Throw overboard part of the agree-


ment: let us discuss the Bill at a different time. Therefore, we demand more, and you must give it up," and the whole of the agreement goes by the board. He is doing one of two things: either deliberately wrecking an agreement which might be of great benefit to the Army and the Air Force, or else he is demonstrating a kind of revolt against what was done through the usual channels, which I think would be unfortunate.
So I would put it to the right hon. Gentleman, who has more acumen than I have in these Parliamentary matters, should we not now continue with discussion on the important matters in the Bill? I suggest that we get on with it right away. Instead of continuing this type of discussion should we not proceed to consideration of the substantial matters? I beg to ask to withdraw the Motion.

Mr. Bing: This proposal to carry on was not the proposal of the Opposition. Now that the Prime Minister is sitting here, let me say that this is the sense of priorities of the Tory Party: recruiting, which they tell us is of great importance, is to be discussed at midnight, while taking teeth from poor old age pensioners is to be given the best part of the day. The Army is to be relegated to the middle of the night. I have no desire to go back on the agreement, but we do not feel that the right hon. Gentleman helps his case by being provocative. I hope that we shall now be able to pass to the Bill without more provocative speeches from the Prime Minister or anyone else.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Question again proposed, "That 'twenty-two' stand part of the Clause."

Mr. Wigg: It is only by accident that I moved this Amendment. When the Committee reached this point last night, the usual channels heavily engaged my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey). In his absence I took on the task. In doing that I went wide of the words in the Clause because I wanted to get from the Secretary of State his views on some arithmetic of mine. I do not propose to take up time by repeating that argument, although I have not had the opportunity to see it in HANSARD because I was speaking at such a late hour.
My embarrassment is great because I am bitterly opposed to my right hon.

Friend's proposal. The idea that the period should be increased from 22 to 30 years is, I think, bad. I am now speaking against the Amendment which I formally moved last night. I am consistent, because two years ago I opposed a proposal which came then from the party opposite. The job of soldiering is essentially a young man's task.
While I agree in principle with what the Secretary of State had in mind, there is quite clearly a limit to the number of vacancies one can give to men who are to spend the whole of their working lives in the Army. I think perhaps this Amendment was put down only to ensure discussion on the main provisions of the Secretary of State's proposals, and if the Secretary of State will be kind enough to reply to what I had to say last night on the question of the bounties, I think that will satisfy us, and we can move on to the more detailed matters which stand in my name and those of my hon. Friends.

Mr. Head: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for the elegant way in which he opposed the Amendment he moved. The hon. Gentleman really has two questions to ask of me the first concerns the length of engagement and the second, in which I think he is more interested, is the question of the bounty. This Amendment, were the Government to implement it, would bring about a state of affairs in which the actuarial strength of the Army would be considerably increased. Nobody can be certain as to the extent for which recruitment within this long-term engagement will continue. As far as we are able, within the actuarial estimate, to accept engagement at 30, it would mean reducing the field of recruiting for younger men, and 30 is unacceptably old for combat purposes.
The hon. Gentleman's other point was the question of the bounty. He mentioned the very ingenuous hypothetical condition of a man who transferred, gained the bounty, transferred again and so on. In fact he informed my Parliamentary Private Secretary of his calculations, for which I am much obliged, and I have worked it out. I can give him very full reasons to show why the proposed 22-year engagement would bring about no disadvantage in comparison with the man already on engagement, as far as the bounty was concerned. I hope he will excuse me now—I can show him the


figures in black and white later behind the Speaker's Chair if he wishes—but this is not the moment juste because in this 22-year engagement, agreement regarding the bounty scheme has not yet been reached.
In this particular circumstance, always assuming that I can tell him what the figures would be, I can assure him that a man who joins up for 22 years will be at no disadvantage whatever with a man whose sole object in re-engagement is to get the maximum bounty. I would assure him the additional bounty he gained by so doing is, if it exceeds a certain sum, subtracted from the final £100 bounty for the 12-year engagement. I can assure him he need have no anxiety regarding the fact that somebody, by a bit of artful dodging, can gain a bigger bounty than a man who gives constant service in a 22-year engagement.

Mr. Wigg: This is not a question of artful dodging. My example B of last night of a man who signs on for a three-or four-engagement, who extends it to 12, and subsequently to 21, is in no sense "artful dodging." There happens to be in the same barrack room one man who makes up his mind for 21 years, but another who comes to it more gradually. Can I take it from the Secretary of State's proposal that a man who takes a 22-year engagement in one bite, will not be worse off than the man who does it first by three, then by seven, and then by 12?
I also ask that the right hon. Gentleman's proposal will be such as to try and prevent what would, in fact, amount to artful dodging—that is, going out after three, six, nine, and 12 years and then re-enlisting and getting another bounty. Has he taken into account all the different circumstances and the likes and dislikes of the men whom he seeks to attract into the Service?

11.15 p.m.

Mr. Head: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman an assurance because the matter is not approved, but we have gone most carefully into the question to ensure the prevention of, not necessarily artful dodging, but the giving of an advantage to the soldier who re-enlists every three years as against the man who embarks on a far more normal engagement. That

has been very much in the minds of those who have drawn up these conditions, but to give an assurance is beyond my power at the present time.

Mr. Wigg: I am not trying to get an assurance to tie down the Secretary of State to a bounty. But many of these bounty schemes looked most attractive at the time of introduction. Take those introduced after the First World War. They looked attractive and they brought a considerable number of men into the Army, but in the end I am sure that they lost the Army good soldiers, because of the way they worked out. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will look at this question not only from a short-term view of the men they will attract in the next few months, but from the long-term view of the number that will be attracted for a longer period.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Strachey: I beg to move, in page 5, to leave out lines 16 to 26, and to insert:
Provided that no person who has not attained the age of eighteen years shall be enlisted for a period longer than the difference between his age and the age of eighteen, and any person enlisted under the age of twenty-one shall have the right to determine his service at the expiration of three years from the date of his enlistment, and no person under twenty-one years of age shall be enlisted without the consent in writing of his parents or guardian.
This is an Amendment of some importance. It is really a question of the protection of minors joining the Army. It seeks three substantial protections for minors under 21 years of age. First, it proposes that persons under 18 years of age shall have an opportunity to break their engagement when they become 18. Second, it provides that persons under 21 years of age shall have the right to determine their service at the expiration of three years from the date of enlistment. Third, it proposes that any person under 21 shall not be enlisted without the consent in writing of his parents or guardian.
I do not necessarily press these provisions for I realise that there may be good reasons against their terms. But I attach a good deal of importance to the principle, and I ask the Secretary of State


to look at that and see if he cannot give effect to some or all of the purposes behind the Amendment. This is the time to do that, when he is bringing forward important new Clauses and Amendments that are designed purely to make the Army a thoroughly satisfactory career, both for the man who wants to join only for a short time and for the man who wants to make the Army his life work for 22 years.
In approaching these provisions, the right principle is that a Regular Army enlistment should be a contractual arrangement, like any other contractual arrangement, between the man and the State, not determinable without due and proper notice, but determinable with proper notice by either side. That would be a real advance. If we could have some provision of that sort for the protection of minors it would help to do what the right hon. Gentleman is attempting, and what he is making progress in doing—getting rid of the last vestiges of the old conception of the Army that once one is in one cannot get out.
The old idea that the only way to get out of the Army is by purchase must be forgotten. We must see that to the recruit today the Regular Army is a career. There still remains the feeling I have described, especially in regard to minors, and I am sure the Army will benefit enormously if the last element of that feeling can be removed.
There should be no feeling whatever that a boy should hesitate to join the Army because once he has done so he can never get out again. It is entirely wrong, and it is a short-sighted way of building up the Regular Forces to try to block the exits from them. We ought to be making the entrances more and more attractive. These are just some suggestions of what can be done for minors. I do not think it can be said that there are necessarily no objections to some of them, but to the intention of the Amendment we attach a good deal of importance.

Mr. Wigg: I am quite sure that if the Secretary of State for War could bring himself to accept this Amendment or something like it, he would confer great benefit on the Army. I am sure that many young men join the Army with a

great deal of enthusiasm, but when in they do not always settle down, and are not of much use to themselves or to the regiment which, unfortunately, has to have them in its ranks.
From inquiries which I have been making I find that parents are worried about pressures which are exerted on young men to join the Services. I am not suggesting that all the stories that have been told to me are correct, but I think that one or two cases are authentic, particularly one, the particulars of which I sent to the Secretary of State for War. I should be much obliged if he would look into it, and let me have a reply.
From the inquiries that I have made I find it is not unknown for young men from Dudley and Stourbridge, who go for medical examination at the Congregational Rooms in Wolverhampton, to be subject to pressures which are bitterly resented by the parents of the young men. They are told, for example, that they can only go to the regiment of their choice if they join the Regular Army. I am told that statements have been made to them that if they do not join the Regular Army they will have to pay for their clothes.
There is no doubt that pressures are exerted, and, of course, in the case I have given to the Secretary of State, the young man succumbed to the pressure to undertake a Regular engagement and then went back and broke the news to his mother and father. I have verified the facts, and I am sure that this is not an uncommon case.
I am sure that while the Secretary of State would in the short run lose a few men, he would in the long run, if he undertook that no Regular Army recruit under the age of 21 would be accepted without the parents' consent, raise the level of the quality of the men he would yet for the Army. One of the things which the Secretary of State must have in mind is this question of quality. This step which my right hon. Friend proposes would be of great advantage.
I do not want to labour either the case I have made nor do I want to use it to say that everybody engaged in recruiting always tells stories that are not true. As I have already said, I am convinced that something like this goes on. Minors can enter into a contract with the Crown with-


out the consent of the parents. Perhaps my hon. and learned Friends will say a word about that but, if it is so, I am asking the Secretary of Sate to place himself in the position of any other employer of labour. Then he will get the recruits he wants and keep them, not because he is in an advantageous position or because his representatives are representatives of the Crown, but because they are going to treat the case on its merits.
If he will accept the Amendment, or something like it, it will be definite proof that he intends to see that the young men of the country are not taken advantage of in the way I am certain that they are being taken advantage of at present.

Mr. Head: I quite understand the reasons which underlie this Amendment. This Amendment applies almost exclusively to the recruitment of boys—

Mr. Strachey: Minors.

Mr. Head: —or minors, as the right hon. Gentleman says. There are two points in this Amendment. The first concerns the enlistment of boys. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we have certain highly technical courses in the Army in which boys are enlisted at the age of 15—apprentice courses—and they are given a first-class technical education. By the time they reach the age of 18, the Army has, from the point of view of qualifying, instructing and keeping them, put a great deal of effort, as is shown in the annual Estimates, into the education of these boys.
I have to say, without any criticism of those concerned, that these boys are extremely desirable objects for certain engineering firms. If this Amendment were accepted, they would only have to make them offers which would induce them to leave the Service at an early date. Ever since these apprentice schemes have been introduced the Army has made it conditional that these boys should enter and undertake a long-service engagement in the Army; it is normally eight years and four years. We are now considering the possibility of reducing that.
If I accepted the Amendment it would be tantamount to agreeing that we would

spend this money on their technical education, qualifying, feeding and educating them in the broader sense, and then be prepared to lose them after a short time. The right hon. Gentleman will be aware also, perhaps, that such a scheme would be hardly acceptable to those who arrange the expenditure of the Army. Every one of these boys and younger men who enlists under the age of 17½ must have the consent of the parent or guardian.
The second category covered by the Amendment is the man who enlists under the age of 21. That not only covers the whole of the National Service field, but the whole recruiting field. After the man is called up neither the parent nor guardian is consulted, gives his consent or has any power whatever to alter the present state of affairs. One might say that it would be most unfortunate if these men were to enlist without the consent of their parents or guardians, but, whether they consented or not, or whether the man joined up, he would be called up at the age of 18; and it is somewhat of a work of supererogation to insist on parental consent for the normal case when, if he joins the Army, he can leave after three years.
11.30 p.m.
Lastly, I would say this to the right hon. Gentleman, that by September, 1953, we shall have ended the compulsory retention of Regulars beyond their contractual term. When we get to September, 1953, the normal purchase from the Army will be re-instituted. The introduction of the new engagement contained in this Bill reduces the liability of the man who does join up at 18 on Regular engagement.
The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) said he felt that there was pressure put on men called up for National Service to join the Regular Army, because it was said to them, "You will not get into the regiment of your choice unless you do", and that may well be true. But I do not believe that to be pressure.
If one joins under the National Service Act and is called up—and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey) will support me in this—one must be put into a unit so that one will be so trained and fitted that,


in time of service, the unit one has served with will be well trained.
A man who lives in Dudley may want to go into a particular type of unit, but if the local Territorials in the vicinity are not suitable it is quite possible the recruit must go into some other unit for which he is better fitted. These things do occur and will continue to occur, and are inevitable if we are to work a National Service scheme.

Mr. Woodrow Wyatt: I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman has quite disposed of the point of enlistment under the age of 21. There is a difference between being called up for National Service for three years, and joining the Army for three years. There is also a distinct difference which might affect his future career, his apprenticeship, or something of that sort. We know prefectly well that sometimes boys can, without any thought at the time, join the Regular Army and regret it afterwards, not because the life is particularly hard but because they do not find it appeals to them. What the Amendment proposes would afford extra protection.
The other point I should like to make about this question of boys under the age of 18 is that I never liked the idea of having boys committed, so to speak, to the Army and so young an age. It would be helpful to know a little more about what the Secretary of State has in mind about a period of engagement for boys.

Mr. M. Stewart: I should like to know, in the case of a boy under 17½ years, whether the parents' consent is always required? I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman could confirm this point. Am I right in thinking that although it is the practice of the Army to require such consent, the Army is not required by statute to do so? What we are, in fact, doing in this Amendment is to require all future Secretaries of State to pursue a practice comparable to that which the present right hon. Gentleman and his predecessors have pursued. There may be some advantage in doing that.
I remember that when I held the position of Under-Secretary of State for War a case was brought to my notice where a young man under the age of 17½ had entered into an enlistment by declaring his age to be 17½. I was then advised

that the law on the matter was that that in no way invalidated the contract. If the Army had chosen to stand on the pure legality of the matter they could have said that a contract to serve the State could be validly entered into by a minor. The contract was valid despite the fact that the youth had maintained that his age was higher than it actually was.
That is, I believe, the legal position in regard to the Army. I agree that the Army generally behaves, as it did on that occasion, much more reasonably than it could behave if it stuck to its legal rights, but there might be some advantage in stating explicitly in the statute what is in fact the practice in the Army.

Mr. R. T. Paget: I am not particularly concerned with the under 21 not getting his parent's consent, Now that the period is reduced to three years only, and the man has to serve two of those years in any event as a National Service man, that does not seem to me awfully important. But I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will look at the question of the boys again. What would we say if a private firm opened a scheme and said, "We will take boys of 15 on condition that, if we educate them for two or three years, their bodies shall be available to us for eight years"?
If a contract of that sort came before any of our courts, it would be thrown out. We should say that it was grossly contrary to public policy. Any such conduct, with or without a parent's consent, entered into by a child would be absolutely invalid. Ought the Government, particularly the Army, to do things which we should regard as quite wrong and quite unfair to the boy if done privately?
The right hon. Gentleman said that this technical education which made the boy valuable cost the Army money. Surely, that is an argument which he should take up with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Education. If this seems to be good education which makes people valuable it is worth while, but it may be that the Ministry of Education should pay part of the cost. I do not know about that, but that really is an argument as to which Department of the Government should pay for it. The right hon. Gentleman's argument does not seem to


me to justify imposing such a long and onerous contract on children.

Mr. Simmons: I wish to protest against the conscription of little children. [HON. MEMBERS: "Enlistment."] It is in a sense conscription, because probably some of them are forced by their parents. At that age they are immature. Their minds are not properly formed. They are, in that respect, especially susceptible to environment.
I think it is a great moral danger to these little children to take them into the Forces. I am sure it is a danger to their individuality and their personality. We ought to allow them to develop gradually and naturally, and I cannot see them doing that in a barrack room or going round the barrack square.
In my opinion the consent of the parents is no excuse. In this country we have good and bad parents. Bad parents might be glad to push on to the Army the responsibility for children which God gave to them and not to the State. This is a great moral question, and I do not know where the Churches are in this matter. They ought to rise up and protest against the children of this nation being put into the Armed Forces of the Crown and in uniform.

Mr. Head: I appreciate the alarm of the hon. Member on this subject, but the boys we are talking about are at apprentice schools run very much like any other technical school. They are not put into the Army at the tender age of 15. They are being educated on normal school lines at apprentice schools.

Mr. Simmons: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for that explanation, but it is not the full explanation. I should like to know what is the routine of these children when they go into the Forces. I presume that they are put into uniform? Are they issued with rifles? Do they have to do rifle drill? Are they on the barrack square and do they do all the general military evolutions?
If we are to train apprentices why should we put them in uniform? Why should we drill them? Great play was made by the right hon. Gentleman about the value of the training these boys will receive. I do not think anyone will doubt the value of the technical training they

will receive. I have no doubt the Army will have gathered together technicians capable of giving that kind of training.
Then the right hon. Gentleman said that if these boys were allowed to leave at the age of 18 or 21 the Army would lose the value of their training. What is so terrible about that? The training should not merely be for the Army, it should be for the nation. Even if these lads left the Army the fact that they were trained would make them very effective in the workshops of the country.
I raise this question because I feel that we have to be very careful in this matter of putting our children into uniform. We remember the hymns of hate we used to sing against Hitler and the Kaiser, because we said they were recruiting children for their wars. We know what we say about the people on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Let us be careful that we are not living in glass houses before we start to throw stones. Let us be sure that the children of this nation are not used in the interests of militarism before they are able properly to think for themselves.

Mr. Wigg: I think my hon. Friend the Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Simmons) is a little wide of the mark. There are three apprentice schools and they are certainly not places for little children or homes of militarism. I do not think they are the ideal places which the Secretary of State for War would have us believe, but they are unlike what my hon. Friend thinks them to be.
This subject is rather like a red rag to a bull to me, because my own nephew wanted to do what his father and other members of his family had done, and he joined one of these apprentice schools. I bear the responsibility for the advice I gave him. These are very good apprentice schools, but they are also schools for n.c.os.
My nephew has no hope of getting a commission, and that is one of the charges which I lay against the Secretary for War; the schools exist to train boys and to turn out the finest n.c.os. in the world, but it is not fair on the "young stuff." These young boys' brains are only taken so far; they learn to mark time, and such duties, but the officers comes from elsewhere.
11.45 p.m.
The Secretary of State for War has failed to understand what it is that we are after. The Government are doing what my right hon. and hon. Friends started, and that is to improve recruiting for the Regular Army by the principle of differentiation. Some of us pleaded for the differentiation in pay for the Regular soldier and the National Service man, and now we have got that. But the War Office also pushes up recruiting by putting pressure on these young men who are brought within that field.
Parents say to me that their sons would not go within a thousand miles of the recruiting serjeant but for the fact that they go there in response to a legal obligation. It is the job of the Secretary for War to ensure that no improper pressure is exerted. Young lads are told "So you want to join the Royal Tank Regiment, or whatever it is. Well, then, become a Regular."
I have many examples of improper pressure being exerted within the regiment. The question of leave comes into it, among other things; we know it does, and one can understand the enthusiasm of commanding officers, and representatives of the Minister. I am sorry he has the responsibility for all the foolishness of some of those borne on his pay-roll. It is no argument to say that these young men have to join at the age of 18 years anyway in response to a legal obligation.
What the parents are concerned about is that the boys go away for two years and pressure is applied, and they find that the boys have to serve for "seven and five." It is not necessary for the Minister to say that they have to do two years in any event. If the young men do a good job in the Army, that is something added to the general wealth of the nation, but I do hope that the Minister will accept the fact that, so far as the apprentices are concerned, there should be another look at the case of young men who, at 18. undertake a Regular engagement.
It is perfectly proper to ask a civilian employer for a parent's consent, and it is perfectly proper to claim that a certain young man, but for a legal obligation of National Service, would not undertake any other military obligation at all. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will address himself to this point.

Mr. Strachey: Before the right hon. Gentleman replies, I would say that I was a little worried by his arguments on this question of the apprentice schools. It is a very natural feeling. It is a Treasury feeling rather than a War Office feeling, if I may put it frankly. But it is not really a good argument that one should try and keep by force, the boy who has been made into a very valuable product, as the right hon. Gentleman says. I do not really believe that that is a useful or effective way of building up the strength and scale of the Regular Army.
As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) has just said, we should not take that attitude in the case of a private firm, or a nationalised industry, for that matter. I do not think, in this day and age, it is the way the Army should go on. I do not say this matter can be altered tonight, but we ought to press it, which is one which the committee which is to be set up should look into very closely.
The conception that one can take in a boy, spend a great deal of money on him, and then say that one can, by statute, keep him for a considerable number of years, is an out-of-date one. In the long run, the Army has to provide, in one way and another, as attractive a career as anyone can get outside and keep the recruit because he wants to stay.
The point my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), has made about a boy's chances of rising to the commissioned ranks is very relevant and part of the whole attraction of the Army as a career. It tempts the Army not to open these avenues of promise and attraction if they feel they can keep people by statute. We do feel there is something of real force involved here, and we ask the Secretary of State for War whether he cannot give us an assurance he will look at the matter and that the committee which is to be set up will look at it.

Mr. Head: I can assure the right hon. Gentleman, and, indeed, it is inevitable that the discussion on this Clause, and other Clauses, and the record of it in HANSARD, will be an important factor in the consideration of the committee to be set up. From a purely personal point of view, as the Minister responsible for


these boys, I think frankly that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey), and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), are making heavy weather about this. On this question of boys' recruitment, people get to know about it and, I may point out, it has recently shown a marked upward trend. One does not get this trend if a lot of boys are trapped into the Army and not allowed to go.
I have the figures for the last two years, including those who have asked to leave by purchase, as they are allowed to do in the first three months, and those who have applied to go. The annual average figures are: regimental boys in non-technical training, 1.7 per cent.; apprentice boys, 2.1 per cent.

Mr. Wigg: rose—

Mr. Head: I think the hon. Gentleman had a good long go, but I will give way in a moment. These are not figures which suggest great discontent. The hon. Gentleman said, "Oh, but it is unfair to keep them in." It is up to a boy to join the Army and become a valuable asset. Supposing he joins the Army and is an apprentice of some industrial firm, is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the fact that that industrial firm, which trained him, can claim him from the Army?

Mr. Paget: That is one of the things we are stopping.

Mr. Head: I do not want to engender a lot of heat. Of course, this will be considered by the committee which is to be a set up and if I am wrong, no doubt, the committee will say that the Secretary of State for War is entirely mistaken on this subject of boys, he has trapped them in the Army, and so forth. But, I do not believe there are these poor, cowering youths being incarcerated by the Army. If we were to say that we would have a three years course, from 15 to 18, and then let them go after a very short time, it would be difficult to justify that expenditure. I do not want to argue that point, but, as I say, the arguments which have been advanced from one side and the other will no doubt be considered.
The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) made certain points on this subject,

and also announced that despite a short period of concord relations had now been broken off. To keep friendly relations with the hon. Gentleman over a long period is rather like trying to balance a plate on the end of a billiard cue: one knows it will fall off fairly soon.
I do not think I shall ever satisfy the hon. Gentleman on this point, but I would say that if these boys find, when they first join, that they do not like the life, they have an absolute right to go during the first three months of their service. I did not mention that originally, and I should like to point it out now.
There are many points on this subject of retention in the Service, and I am aware that the boys are now, as the Act is amended, the only ones who are retained for this long period. I was asked how long the regimental boys would be retained. That is under discussion, and it would be wrong to give an answer now. The maximum is "eight and four," and we are considering a reduction. I cannot say how far at this stage.
Everything that has been said tonight will be available for consideration by the committee, and I suggest that we might now pass to another of the important topics.

Mr. Wigg: The right hon. Gentleman really ought not to come to the Committee with these phoney statistics. It is no use his coming here and saying "I have statistics which show that the incidence of purchasing out during the first three months is x per cent." That is not the test. We are far too old soldiers for that. Will he tell us what is the rate of absenteeism? How many deserters and absentees are there in proportion to the Army as a whole? That will tell me whether these soldiers are contented. The right hon. Gentleman should not come here and say to me "One per cent. claimed their discharge by purchase." That is no test of how happy they are: that is a test of how much money their parents have got. That sort of argument is no good at all, and the right hon. Gentleman knows it.
I will accept the suggestion of my right hon. Friend that we should leave this to the Committee; I can see that is going to be a convenient formula in the near future. I accept that, but I want from the Secretary of State an assurance that he will inquire into the one specific


case of which I will send him details, and will also use his influence to see that there is no improper influence being used or the National Service man when he is coming into the Service, and when he is in the Service, to undertake an engagement which he does not fully understand.
Let me cheer up the right hon. Gentleman by saying that he will not hold his job very long, because the first county council election results from my part of the world show that there have been four Labour gains. I therefore hope he will use the brief time that remains to him as Secretary of State for War to see that the present good will for the Army is not undermined by the improper pressures to which I am referring. I hope he will give me that assurance.

Mr. M. Stewart: I did ask the right hon. Gentleman a question which he has not answered, and I think it is of some interest. Is the asking of the consent of parents for boys under 17½ merely the practice of the Army or is it something they are obliged to do by statute?

Mr. Head: That is done under recruiting Regulations.

Mr. Stewart: It is not statutory?

Mr. Head: It is done under recruiting Regulations.

Mr. Stewart: That, I think, means that it is not statutory.

Mr. Head: I see we have with us the former Attorney-General—

Sir Hartley Shawcross: Former President of the Board of Trade.

Mr. Head: And also former Attorney-General. Perhaps he could inform us. I am not a right hon. and learned Gentleman, therefore I could not answer that question. I can only give the hon. Gentleman the factual answer that it is done under recruiting Regulations.

12 midnight.

Mr. M. Stewart: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider this point? I think that means that it is not statutory. That means to say that it can be altered without going through the procedure of altering an Act of Parliament. But if it is the invariable practice of the Army to behave in that manner, would there be

any harm in putting that into the Army Act at some stage? I should have thought not, if the Army is always prepared to ask for consent. It may be desirable, to show the Army's excellent intentions, to have it in the Act.

Mr. Head: If the hon. Gentleman were in my shoes I do not think he would not care to give a categorical assurance that it will be included. We will look into that question. It is at present habitual in the Army. I learn that it is not statutory law. Whether it would be suitable for inclusion in the Act I do not know, but I will give an undertaking to look into it.

Mr. Strachey: I cannot pretend that I am wholly convinced by the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman, but I agree that we cannot take the matter much further tonight. It is the sort of thing that the committee must wrestle with. Therefore I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Strachey: I beg to move, in page 5, to leave out lines 31 to 37.
The Amendment is to leave out subsection (3). I move it because neither I, nor learned Friends whom I have consulted, can understand what it means. I will read it. It says:
Any power conferred by subsection (1) of this section to prescribe a term for which a person may be enlisted, the portion of such a term that it to consist of Army service or or a period beginning with the date on which a person attains the age of eighteen years shall include power to prescribe different terms, portions or periods, either generally or in relation relation to different classes of cases.
I begin to get a glimmer of what it means. I see that it is referring back to subsection (1). It may be all right, but it seems to me pretty hard for a court to interpret. Perhaps the legal luminaries of another place can look at it to see if they can draft it more clearly for the man in the street.

Mr. Head: I think the right hon. Gentleman will agree when I say that this Amendment is in the truest sense exploratory. I will venture, as an explorer, into these rather novel words and attempt to explain the purpose of this Clause. I think that the crux of this Clause lies in the word, "prescribed,"


because, as the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate, in the subsection referred to in the Clause, namely subsection (1), there is no mention of the word "prescribe." But in subsection (1, b and c) there is reference to "prescribed." Both (b) and (c) refer to a limited period of service—limited at present to 12 years.
The power that we are taking in subsection (3) is that within that period of 12 years we have the ability to alter the proportion of Colour service compared with Reserve service. At present it is limited to three years with the Colours, four years with the Reserve. At present there is no alternative of five and seven; there can be no periods of five years and seven, and no alternative to 22 years' engagement. I think it would be rash for me to say we have cast the right period and will never want to alter it. This subsection gives us power to change to three and four years, four and four years, four and five years—any combination, like the football pool permutations, which we would wish to make of the 12 years.
Although I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's difficulty at finding this coming in a flash of obviousness, I can assure him that I have taken a certain amount of trouble myself on the best—well, perhaps the best—legal advice in order to brief myself on this matter. Although I see the ex-Attorney-General has arrived I can assure him that is the purpose of this Clause, that is its meaning, and that is why it is in the Bill. I believe it is right to have this very commonsense provision within the Clause, and is wise from the point of view of those who have to attempt to make this scheme work and attract as many soldiers as possible.

Mr. E. Fletcher: If the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting that the object of this Amendment is exploratory, personally I do not think that the exploration has so far been very successful. It does not seem to me that he has explained quite clearly to the Committee what was the precise effect of the subsection. I understand it is only intended to apply to Clause 7 (b) and (c) and I understood he said he had taken power—of course, he meant he was asking for power—for the Government to determine

at a later date the precise terms for which paragraphs (b) and (c) apply.
What puzzles me is the object of the last two or three lines of this Clause. Why is it necessary to ask for power to prescribe different terms or periods for different classes of cases? Will the right hon. Gentleman say what are the cases he means, and, also, whether it is intended by this subsection that the Secretary of State should not merely have power to prescribe the terms on one occasion, but to vary them from time to time? If so, is it intended to have that power with resort to Parliamentary sanction or not?

Mr. Paget: For my part. I was going to thank the right hon. Gentleman. I spent quite a long time quite sincerely trying to discover what this Clause meant, and I failed utterly. I think I have now solved it. It is rather like one of those ridiculous puzzles that are quite simple when one has got the clue.

Mr. Strachey: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's explanation, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment, if that is the wish of the Committe.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Hopkin Morris): The next Amendment, in page 6, line 1, is not selected.

Mr. Wigg: On a point of order. May I ask you why this Amendment has not been selected, Mr. Hopkin Morris? We attach considerable importance to this, and I wonder if you would be good enough to hear my reasons—as I think you can, before deciding that it cannot be called. The reasons are—

The Deputy-Chairman: Discussion is not permissible. It is out of order. I will pass to the next Amendment.

Mr. Paget: Further to that point of order, I wonder if it would be possible for you to reconsider your decision, Mr. Hopkin Morris. On the question of selection, it is not always possible to see the point. The present position is that the 12-year man can go out on three months' notice. That has been changed by this Act to his disadvantage, and we certainly would regard this as one of the most important Amendments on the paper tonight. We were quite prepared to drop a number of other Amendments, but this is different.

Mr. Strachey: I would like to reinforce the argument which has been put to you, Mr. Hopkin Morris. I know that we cannot ask for any reasons for non-selection, but it is a point of great substance, far more important than the last Amendment that was moved. I should have thought it would have been to the convenience of the Committee to discuss it. It may not be a proper suggestion but, I repeat, it is a point of great substance.

The Deputy-Chairman: I am afraid that my decision is not debatable. This is one of the points within the discretion of the Chair and the Chair has exercised its discretion in the matter. We must pass on to the next Amendment. The Committee might find it convenient to discuss the next two Amendments together.

Mr. Paget: On the point of order. The Chair has to exercise its discretion, of course, but having now heard our views perhaps the Chair will exercise its discretion in the light of the rather strong views we hold.

Mr. Deputy-Chairman: I am afraid there is no opinion on that.

Mr. Wigg: I beg to move, in page 6, line 6, to leave out "four "and to insert "two and a half."
We can take this Amendment and the next one in my name, in page 6, to leave out lines 8 to 12, together.
The Amendment seeks to bring the provisions or the clause into line with the obligations that are imposed on a National Service man, so that if the recruit leaves the Service after three years his position will be exactly the same as if he had not undertaken the engagement of 22 years, but remains liable to his National Service reserve obligation. If accepted, it would put recruits on all fours with National Service men.

Mr. Head: It is the case that if I accepted this Amendment I would be putting a man who engaged on a Regular engagement on all fours with the period of total Colour and Reserve service of the National Service man. But it is not quite so simple as that. The man who joins the Regular Army is taking on a definite contract and, in my opinion, is in a very different status from that of the man who, entirely against his

will, has to come up under National Service.
In the case of the first category, we want to give the man the minimum obligation required so that National Service can fulfil its function to make Army service effective. In the case of the second category, voluntary enlistment, we want to arrive at an engagement that will, first, prove attractive—or there will be no recruits—and, second, will adequately fulfil the Reserve engagement of the Regular Army.
If I were to accept the suggestion, the first effect would be about to halve the size of the Regular Army Reserve, from four to two and a half years, for every man who joins on this three-year engagement. Thus one immediate effect would be that we should become more than ever dependent on National Service. If we have a very small Regular Army Reserve, and we come to happier days in which we can make a settlement with Russia, then, when we wish to do away with National Service the Regular Army Reserve would be so small that, for a period until we had increased and built it up, you are dependent on National Service for the reserve.
12.15 a.m.
The second reason is that the decision to make it three years and four has been arrived at after very considerable actuarial work in order to ascertain what is the minimum Regular Army Reserve which we must have. The hon. Gentleman may say that we were leaving this too long, but since this particular engagement was introduced into the Army recruiting figures compared with the figures for last year have been more than trebled, and if this Reserve period is too long it is not shown in the way in which the acceptance of this particular term of engagement has been undertaken by a large number of men.

Mr. Wigg: I am not altogether persuaded by the last reasons of the right hon. Gentleman, because the ill-feeling that the Regular soldier feels as a result of the engagement arises before he enters into the engagement. The fact that the Secretary of State altered the period—

Mr. Head: It was altered very much to the better. It used to be five or seven or seven or five, with a much longer portion on Reserve.

Mr. Wigg: The Secretary of State does not quite understand. The reservist, as long as he gets his Reserve pay and is not called up, does not mind very much about it, and, anyway, the pay comes in handy. What I sought to do—it might be in the wrong form of words—was to impose on the young man who starts on a 22 years' engagement, does not like it and opts to come out the same obligation which he would have had to undertake if he had not done that. I think that that is fair, but if the Secretary of State thinks that that will upset the balance of his Reserve and their numbers I will not press the Amendments. If the right hon. Gentleman says that he must have this, then I will accept what he says. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Strachey: I beg to move, in page 6, line 43, to leave out
if the competent military authority approve.

The Deputy-Chairman: I think it would be for the general convenience of the Committee if we took this Amendment and the following one, in page 7, line 12, together.

Mr. Strachey: As I understand it—and the Secretary of State will correct me if I am wrong—the right hon. Gentleman referred to the option of the men who have enlisted under an earlier engagement who may wish to opt into the new 22-years' engagement. If that is so, I should not have thought that there ought to be this proviso that the competent military authority approves.
I do not see why we should limit the right. We want to attract men into this this new 22-year service period, so why should we not give a straightforward right of option to take up the Army as a career on this new long-service period of 22 years without this proviso? There are perfectly good powers in the Army for dealing with men who prove themselves impossible soldiers, but I cannot see why there should be this saver that the competent military authority has to approve the option.

Mr. Head: I appreciate the desire behind this Amendment. It is that a man who desires to make the Army his career could do so without any permissive Clause of this type. There are reasons

for this I assure the right hon. Gentleman and the reasons, I equally assure him, are not to reduce the number of men who sign on for 22 years. They are that there may be men who join for the three and four engagement or National Service men who, after taking on, prove themselves, not ineligible by actual record, but undesirable for permanent retention as soldiers. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that such men do occur, although they are few and far between.
There are also men who, through the diversity of engagement would reach the 22-year engagement about the age of 60 because it is possible for a man to take a considerably longer period to serve who is quite a substantial age. I could explain how that is brought about, but it is complicated and I think I would be wasting the time of the Committee.
The words
if the competent military authority approve.
sound as if some form of selection board was indicated, but the "competent military authority" is the Officer i.c. Records and I have yet to find such an officer who did not try to build them up and have the maximum number of records. That is far more of a formality than an exceptional selection, but the officer in charge of records has to deal with the man who is undesirable or who has reached an age at which he is of no further use to the Army.

Mr. Strachey: In view of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Strachey: I beg to move, in page 7, to leave out lines 18 to 26.
This deals with the question of transfer of the man on older terms of engagement to new terms. It is laid down that he cannot transfer if that shortens his term of engagement. Is this really wise? This action forbids a man to take a course which, in certain circumstances, may seem advantageous to him, although, of course, by shortening his term, the Army no doubt lose some of his service.
It loses on that man, but does not this type of proviso defeat itself by making the Army less attractive to men in general? I cannot help feeling that a policy of generosity in this respect would


pay in the long run. I should have thought it a pity to spoil a thoroughly good scheme in general by having provisions by which the man might feel he was being treated a little meanly.

Mr. Paget: I believe that there is no greater source of unhappiness in any unit than when one man feels that he is being unfairly treated as against another. If circumstances arise in which a man has joined on the longer engagement and the man who comes in later on the new form of engagement and the man who came in earlier finds that he is at a disadvantage against the men who came in later, we shall have a bad feeling and that bad feeling will do more injury than the odd years of extra service that may be obtained from a few people by applying this proviso. I feel there is a case here for generosity. After all, keeping people in the Army depends primarily on people being happy in the Army, and liking it.

Mr. Head: I appreciate the point which has been raised, but, quite frankly, it is extremely rare that this opportunity falls to me. I do not think that the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) has correctly interpreted the Clause. He is referring to those who join under the old engagement, but this Clause does not refer to that particular subject.
As the right hon. Gentleman opposite said, the Clause is one which ensures that any man—and this applies particularly to boys—who comes over from a 12-year engagement to 22-year engagement, does not serve in the Colours for a shorter period than he would have done in his previous engagement. We took account of an identical problem when we discussed earlier the case of a boy who has technical training whom we want to retain for a second period in the colours.
But the Clause as it stands refers only to boys, except in one extremely rare instance—that of a man who joins for the three and four, and does a rare and peculiar thing, which is to translate his reserve service into Colour service, and thereby makes it into seven. If he takes that step he may have three years back on a 22-year engagement. I do not believe it is worth bothering the Committee with. This is only a Clause which concerns boys. I think it is a recapitu-

lation of the arguments we had before. The intention of the Clause, virtually, is merely to ensure that these boys continue to serve in the Army for the period for which they engaged.

Mr. Paget: The right hon. Gentleman is quite right. I misunderstood this Clause. He means what he says. Why does this not apply to the men who joined for five and seven?

Mr. Head: This is the non-retrospective part of the Bill. We shall come soon to the part of the Bill which deals with the man who does join under the old engagement, and for whom we have repealed the law. We have not got to that very difficult stage yet. This is, "Let us Face the Future."

Mr. Strachey: I do not agree with the Secretary of State on this, but it is the same argument that we had before on the boys and I am sure that we cannot resolve it now. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Head: I beg to move, in page 9, line 4, after "enlistment to insert under this Act."
This is purely a drafting Amendment designed to cover a somewhat rare occurrence. If we were to omit this Amendment, we should allow a very rare form of enlistment—enlistment under Section D of the Reserve. This Amendment is to ensure that that eventuality is insured against.

Amendment agreed to.

12.30 a.m.

Mr. Paget: I beg to move, in page 9, line 9, to leave out from the beginning, to the end of line 11, in page 10, and to insert:
(1) Where a soldier deserts the period of his desertion shall be added to the term of his enlistment.
We regard this Amendment as most important. Section 81 of the Army Act, as re-enacted in this Bill, provides, in a great number of words—in fact, in almost a full page of words—broadly speaking, that a man who deserts shall have the whole of his service wiped out.
That is a provision which, for two reasons, we dislike. The first is a matter of principle, that automatic punishments are nearly always wrong and unsatis-


factory. The second is because it is unfair between two men who have done the same thing. A man who may have given valuable service for 20 years loses 20 years. A man who, immediately after having got his kit, goes straight off and "flogs" it and deserts within a few hours, gets a much less penalty under this Clause. He does not happen to have any service to forfeit.
There are wide powers of punishment for desertion under the Army Act which leave the court-martial the discretion of selecting the punishment suitable for the degree of guilt involved in the desertion. We feel that that is the way in which punishment should be allocated, the actual facts of each case being considered; and that we should not have an automatic punishment which operates unevenly between people who have committed the same offence.
What we suggest by this Amendment is that instead of losing the whole service a man should have added to his period of enlistment the time during which he has been a deserter. Then he would not save any time for himself by deserting. But, as long as we do that, it seems to us unfair to take off the whole of his service, which may have been good and valuable service. In practice this is dealt with, to some extent, by the provision that service may be restored by subsequent good conduct. I believe that, generally speaking, if a man serves 18 months after his desertion and has a clear conduct sheet, he will have returned to him the service which has been forfeited.
That seems to be a somewhat round about way of working. Let the man have the punishment which is selected and which the court-martial thinks fair, but do not let us have these automatic punishments.

Mr. Head: I appreciate that the hon. and learned Gentleman is anxious about this, which I agree, on the face of it, appears a very considerable punishment for either fraudulent enlistment or desertion. So far as fraudulent enlistment is concerned, as the hon. and learned Gentleman no doubt knows, it has nothing to do with such things as false names, ages, and so forth. It is, roughly, desertion followed by re-enlistment. The other crime is desertion without that.
I would point out that in the Army today the major and outstanding crime which is always at the top of the list is desertion or absence without leave. It is a problem, particularly when men take the law into their own hands and go away after the Army has been reasonably generous about compassionate leave and such matters. Desertion is with intent to remain away indefinitely, and I suggest that a considerable deterrent is removed if this Amendment is adopted.
It throws a very considerable burden on a man's comrades. A man may be posted overseas and desert three or four weeks before his ship is due to sail. Another man who is not otherwise going has to be sent in his place. If this particular Amendment were accepted there are many Regular soldiers who would consider that the average punishment now introduced could be borne. He could serve his term in the "glasshouse" and it might be worth it.
This has always been in the Army Act and is a considerable deterrent. There is an argument which the hon. and learned Gentleman might deploy which is that in certain circumstances, such as a critical situation in a man's family life or private affairs, he might go away. In that event a man who has suffered the loss of a considerable period of service, directly he comes back, has only to serve 18 months with good conduct and he has his past service restored to him.
There is the further point that under the old law a man might forfeit service by seven or five years and come back, and, compulsorily, he would have to serve the seven years to fulfil his contract. That penalty no longer exists. Supposing a man forfeited 14 years in a 22-year engagement. He comes back and fails to do 18 months with a clear sheet. That, I suggest, any man is capable of doing, but this man fails to do it. If he is fed up with the Army and everything it stands for he can go after three years, which he could never have done before.
Therefore, the suggestion of the hon. and learned Gentleman would encourage the crime which is a great problem to the Army, and would cater against the contingency in which a vast majority of men would be able to get their service back; and also ignores entirely the fact that under the new engagement the penalty of having to serve on to fulfil


the contract is reduced to a maximum period of three years.

Mr. Paget: If it is found that the present maximum sentence is an insufficient deterrent for this crime increase the maximum sentence, but still have a sentence which is imposed at the discretion of the court. It is not only the man who goes off because of serious trouble at home; as the Minister says, they are very reasonable in the Army today about compassionate leave, but what can well happen is that a man is under a particular officer, or n.c.o., who gets more and more on his nerves until, finally, he says "I can stand it no longer". Because of that personal factor, something goes, the man says, "I cannot bear the sight of this fellow any longer", and an offence is committed. These are the cases where one has to consider very carefully what is fair and what is reasonable.
Do not let us have these automatic punishments. Under the three years' engagement, it is very much less a deterrant under this Clause because it does not affect the amount of time the man has to serve before he gets out. If the Minister feels that this present deterrent is insufficient, let him increase the maximum punishment in the Act, but let him also leave it to the discretion of the court. I suggest that this could well be a matter which the Departmental committee could consider; we could get on tonight, but before we part with this I hope that it will be agreed that this is a matter of principle.

Mr. Bing: The debate has become a little academic because of the very reasonable arrangement arrived at, but I would just like to say that this concerns fraudulent enlistment and that the position today is very different from the 18th century crime of that description. Then, the man went along to get accoutrements far in excess of his pay, and found that he could make rather a good thing out of running round all the regiments he could find and enlisting in them.
Today, we are concerned with the man who rather likes the Army, but who has left because of some trouble he has got himself into; and it is a little hard that that man should have to suffer difficulties unnecessarily when, as a very good soldier in many ways, he offers his ser-

vices again to the Forces. It will be recalled by hon. Members that under an ordinance of the Duke of Wellington, an officer, if accused and found guilty of a crime, was afterwards employed on active service, the whole of his crime was condoned; and it seems wrong to me that, where a man seeks condonation of his crime by enlisting again, he should find himself in a difficult position.
If the Departmental Committee is to look into this whole matter of fraudulent enlistment, then I hope that the Secretary of State will agree with me that these few remarks should have been made at this stage.

Mr. Paget: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

12.45 a.m.

Mr. Bing: I am sorry to intervene, and perhaps many hon. Members here think I have only just come in, but I have come in with the object of putting on record an objection, not to this Act, but to the way in which this Clause has been drafted. If we had not set down a series of Amendments it would have been impossible to have had a debate on this Clause, because this is a very French form of legislation. When we have a debate on the Question that this Clause stand part, we are really having a Second Reading debate on Part II of the Army Act. I only want to make the point that if at a subsequent period we do come to amend again the Army Act, it is much more convenient for the Committee if each Section is dealt with as a separate entity. Then, if we so desire, we can debate the Sections on the Question that the Clause stand part.
It is a model of moderation on our part that we have not put down Amendments in each case to omit line so-and-so, so as to take each Section as it comes. It is a rather unfortunate innovation in drafting, and I hope, seeing that the Solicitor-General is here, that there will be a note taken of this point. I hope that we shall not have again a Clause which deals, as this one does, with Sections 76, 77, 78, 79, and all of Section 80, all appearing under one head.
Fortunately, we are going to reconsider the whole matter, so this is not really a matter of substance. From a practical point of view, it is an undesirable practice and those engaged in this particular matter should take note of what we say. This will avoid the difficulty of people having to set down Amendments and will enable the Committee to get through much more quickly.

Mr. Paget: I have one point which I want to draw to the attention of the Solicitor-General, because it may require Amendment in another place. It is a purely drafting question and concerns Section 77 (3). I think the purpose of that subsection is that under the 22 years' service enlistment a man can leave on giving three years' notice, but sometimes it is desirable to give a man a course of training, which may be valuable to him, both in his Army career and afterwards, and the Army will not get sufficient value from that training unless he agrees to waive his right to resign after three years' stay in the Army.
It is the intention that the man, in consideration of that sort of training, should have the right to waive his right to go out of the Army at an early period. That, as I understand it, is the intention. Somebody, perhaps the draughtsmen, drew attention to the fact that there is a rule of law, that where a Statute gives a man a right, he is not allowed to waive that right. For instance, rent restriction is the obvious example which comes to our attention. A man cannot contract not to exercise his rights under the Rent Restriction Acts. There are any amount of instances, including the Factories Acts.
The rule of law is that if we, Parliament, give a man a right he may not waive that right or bargain it away. What this means to say, as I understand it, is that in these circumstances a man in the Army may waive the right which we have given him notwithstanding the rule of law to the contrary. In fact they have said exactly the opposite; they have said "without prejudice to the rule of law relating to the waiver of statutory rights." Now to say "without prejudice to the rule" means to say "This man may waive his statutory right unless it conflicts with the rule of law." Well, it does conflict with the rule of law and, to my mind, that reduces this paragraph down to nonsense.
Since the paragraph provides for a right to waive, I do not think it is necessary to refer to that statutory rule at all. But if the statutory rule is to be referred to, I suggest that it must be notwithstanding the statutory rule and not without prejudice to the statutory rule, because "without prejudice" is the opposite meaning to what is intended. One sees the same thing in Section 79 (1), where it is without prejudice to the right conferred by Section 77 of this Act. Now "without prejudice" to a right is correct. But this is not a right: it is the opposite of a right, and the words which would be appropriate to a right have been applied to its opposite.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): I will try to answer the ingenious and interesting argument which the hon. and learned Gentleman has advanced, but I think I am correct in saying that he has based the whole of his argument on an inaccurate premise. It is not right to say that a man cannot waive a right conferred upon him by Statute. That is not a general rule at all. Where rights are given in a particular instance, special provision has to be made that a man shall not contract out of the rights conferred upon him. The general rule is quite contrary to what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said. There are rules of law relating to the waiver of statutory rights.
The reason for the words "without prejudice to the operation of any rule of law" relating to the waiver of statutory rights being in that subsection is this. If we merely gave an express right of waiver without saying anything about the common law rights of waiver, then it might be held in the courts that the express statement of the right of waiver in the Section would exclude the ordinary right of waiver of a statutory right. It is for that reason, so as to preserve in existence as well the ordinary rules of law with regard to the waiver of statutory rights, that the subsection starts with the words I have just read out to the Committee.
I do not know that I can carry the hon. and learned Gentleman with me, but I am sure he will find, if he examines it a hale bit more closely, that it is perfectly possible for an individual, unless the Statute itself prohibits it, to agree to waive a right conferred upon him by that Statute. It is so as to enable a man to waive rights should he want to do


so, quite apart from the express provision of this Section, that these words "without prejudice" and the words which follow are inserted. I note with interest the concern that the hon. and learned Gentleman feels about it, but I can assure him that the wording has been carefully considered in view of the Amendment. I am advised by Parliamentary counsel that the wording is correct.

Mr. Paget: I would agree that when there are statutory rights it is always a question of ascertaining what is the intention of the State. The rule relating to waiver of statutory rights is well understood. Prima facie, unless there is something in the Statute to show a contrary intention, the rule of law is that where the right is conferred by a Statute it cannot be waived. Supposing a man agrees with some third party to join the Army for 12 years, and not to leave it before the end of that period; that he does that by contract with his father, or with someone who wants to get rid of him from civilian life.
Does the learned Solicitor-General suggest that that contract would be enforceable, and that the rule against the waiving of statutory rights would not be invoked by any court to upset a contract of that sort? I cannot conceive of circumstances in which a right to waive this particular right needs to be conserved because, except by agreement with the State, as provided for here, how could there be a waiver of this sort?

The Solicitor-General: The hon. and learned Gentleman does not think that this will give any advantage to the soldier. I do not agree. The object of these words is to secure that any existing right, which a soldier may have, of waiver is not excluded from the express statement of the right to waive contained in that subsection. If the hon. and learned Gentleman is right, the words mean nothing. If I am right, it means that the giving of the express right will not operate to deprive a soldier of any right he may have under any rule of law. Therefore, I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman, whether he agrees with me or not, will realise that the intention is to preserve any right the soldier may have apart from this subsection. If there are any rights, at least they will be preserved for the soldier.
I will turn now to the point raised by the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing). He said that it was not one of substance but it was undesirable to contain so many new Sections of the Army Act in one Clause of the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill. I think I fully understood and appreciated his point. We always take note of what the hon. and learned Gentleman says, however often he says it, or at whatever hour. I believe it is a great convenience to have them together; but the hon. and learned Gentleman says that if they were set out separately one could always have a debate on the Motion that the Clause stand part and need not put down an Amendment to leave out one Section or another. We will consider his point, but I think that the present practice is not undesirable.

1.0 a.m.

Mr. Bing: I do not want to press this, but I would urge on the right hon. Gentleman that it is a little undesirable for hon. Members to have Amendments on the Order Paper before they can discuss any alteration. It is very convenient if the thing is there, and anybody who has a point he wishes to raise can do so on the Question that the Clause stand part. It is a little inconvenient when we come to debate the Clause standing part that we are involved in a general debate on four or six Sections, each of which may be quite different in their effect. The result will be that we shall have a Second Reading debate at a later stage. I hope that in regard to this Bill and other Measures that what seems to me to be an undesirable practice will be looked at again. I do not wish to try to lure the hon. and learned Gentleman to his feet again, but it does seem undesirable.

Mr. Wigg: The fact that we are going to have a Select Committee enables me to cut short what I want to say to a very few minutes. If we had not had a Select Committee, we should have kept the Committee much longer on this Clause, which of course goes right to the heart of Secretary of State's reforms. He thinks, and I hope he is right, that by introducing this provision enabling a soldier to enlist for a period of 22 years, he is going to get a considerable number of recruits. I am not sure whether that will be the result, but I hope so. I wish to warn the Committee that the Secretary


of State, under the guise of making a concession, is in fact imposing limitations, and I wish to draw the Committee's attention to them.
Under the existing Regulations a soldier with 12 years' service can give three months notice and obtain a free discharge. If the right hon. Gentleman will turn to paragraph 99 (a) of the existing King's Regulations, he will see that there is a provision for free discharge after 12 years' service. That is a very valuable concession indeed, and a concession which is much prized by the long service Regular soldier.
What the regular n.c.o. and warrant officer worries about, as he accumulates responsibilities, is a home for his family when he leaves the Service and a job. The house and the job may come along any time from that 12 years onwards. It is that kind of thing which decides him whether he will sign on or not. This problem does not at it were hit the man between the eyes for the moment; it is only towards the end of his service that he wakes up and finds out that the man who has not undertaken a 22 years engagement can go away free by giving three months notice, while the man who has undertaken a 22 years engagement has to wait for three years to get it.
I am not asking the Under-Secretary to go into a detailed reply on this point. I wish to draw his attention to another anomaly under the existing Regulations. Had we not thrown the new Clause into discard, we should have been raising the point of an n.c.o. reduced to the ranks. Under the existing Regulations a warrant officer reduced to the ranks, irrespective of service, can claim a discharge. He cannot be required to serve in the ranks on reduction.
There is also a paragraph in the same King's Regulations, paragraph 391 (b), providing that a, soldier at his own request can be discharged with between five and 12 years' service on being reduced to the ranks. That, again, is an important safeguard of the rights of the senior n.c.o. who has the misfortune to run into trouble with the authorities. The right hon. Gentleman is not giving this safeguard. Once again we have the long service man under the Head reforms not getting the same

concession available to the soldier who takes his service in a rather less concentrated form.
I do not press the point, because on the Select Committee we shall have an opportunity to look into it. I am asking the Under-Secretary to try and exercise a little curb on the perhaps youthful enthusiasm of the Secretary of State. When the Secretary of State introduces measures of this kind and sees the whole of the youth of Britain flocking to join the Colours to undertake an engagement of 22 years, the Under-Secretary should ask him to think again and try, if it is possible, to project himself into the position of the working-class young man—for it is the working-class young man who is concerned in this kind of engagement—and imagine what his reactions are at different times in his life. If 22 years seems attractive at the start, will the Secretary of State realise that it will not be quite so attractive when he gets into the barrack room and finds that there are conditions attached to his engagement that are less attractive than the conditions attached to somebody else's engagement?
It has always been a valuable principle, going back for half a century in the Army to my certain knowledge, that a concession once given is regarded as a right not lightly to be taken away. It does not make for discipline to have serving in the same regiment two men who have different kinds of engagement, with different conditions attached to them.
Therefore, I hope that the Select Committee will take note of this, and that the Under-Secretary, when putting concessions down, whether in the form of amendments to current Regulations or as Amendments to the Army Act, should look beyond the immediate point of introduction to see what the effect is going to be over a long period. It is always necessary to remember that if a mistake is made it takes a long time to correct—six months is but a second in Army terms. The most any Secretary of State for War or any member of the Army Council can do is to lay the pattern that will influence the kind of Army we are going to get generations ahead. I hope the Under-Secretary will see what the effect of these regulations would have been had there been no Select Committee


and no Opposition vigilant enough to put their finger on this weakness.

The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. J. R. H. Hutchison): The hon. Member has suggested that I should try to curb my right hon. Friend's enthusiasm. That is the last thing I should try to do: if I could do anything, it would be to steer it in the right direction.
The hon. Gentleman talked about the disadvantages under one type of engagement compared with the advantages under another. I assure him that all these possibilities and the balance between one advantage and a disadvantage—length of service, gratuities, and so on—were taken fully into consideration while the 22-year plan was being formulated. But as he and the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) said, the situation is slightly academic. I suppose every word uttered in this debate will be taken notice of by the Select Committee. Let us leave it at that.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 8.—(REGULATIONS)

Mr. Swingler: I beg to move, in page 11, line 24, at the end, to insert:
and all such regulations made under this section shall be laid before each House of Parliament as soon as maybe after they are made, and if within forty days after they have been so laid either House presents an Address to Her Majesty praying that such rules may be annulled, Her Majesty may thereupon by Order in Council annul the same, and the rule so annulled shall henceforth become void without prejudice to anything done thereunder in the meantime.
I believe I am able to congratulate the Under-Secretary on his maiden speech in the debate, but I do not know whether I should go on to say that we shall hope to hear him on many occasions in what remains to be dealt with. He will easily deal with this Amendment, because I imagine it to be acceptable.
This Clause provides for a revised version of Section 93 of the Army Act, which gives power to the Army Council to make regulations about enlistment, conditions of service, and periods of service. It is on more or less the same lines as the old Section 93 in the Act.
My hon. Friends and I wish to insert in that Section a provision that regulations made by the Army Council about

Part II of the Act—and only Part II—shall be laid before the House and shall be subject to the procedure of negative Resolution procedure. I cannot imagine that there can be any objections at all, since it is generally agreed that these matters of conditions of service, periods of service, and forms of enlistment are very important matters that ought to be debated in the House. I think it will be agreed that the regulations made by the Army Council under this part of the Bill ought to be laid before the House in the same way as other rules and regulations are laid.
We have said in our Amendment that there ought to be time found for debating these regulations, and if necessary we should make present a humble address to Her Majesty for the annulment of the regulations by Order in Council. In other words, we want to embody in this Clause the procedure of the negative Resolution procedure in regard to any Army Council regulations on the subject of conditions of service and periods of service for regular soldiers.
I hope that the Under Secretary of State will find himself in a position to accept this Amendment. Possibly, it is not drafted in the proper way, and it may well be that he will have to look at the drafting again; but I hope he will accept the principle which we should like to see embodied in the Bill. It is a revised form of Section 93, and I think we are all agreed that it is a good idea to allow more Parliamentary control and discussion on the conditions and periods of service in the Regular Army. This is the kernel of our Amendment.

Mr. Bing: I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler) says he does not think that this Amendment is drafted correctly, because it is copied from the Act itself. It comes from Section 108A, and it is in exactly the same form as is the provision for praying against the prices which may be charged for billets when billets are demanded under the emergency regulations.
I intervene at this stage merely to say that in view of the Committee that is being formed, it is very desirable that we should have some uniformity of practice as to how regulations under the Army Act are treated. I am sorry that the hon.


Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams) is not here, but his understudy the Patronage Secretary is present, and, therefore, I hope I may address to the Committee a short argument on the point of Parliamentary procedure.
At the time the Army Discipline Regulation Act was passed, business was rather slack in the House. Therefore, it was sufficient that the regulations were laid before Parliament, because if they were so laid and presented then they were debated. It was not necessary to make the usual Prayer arrangements by which these regulations could be annulled within a certain period, which makes them exempted business.
Therefore, most of the regulations under the Army Act are subject to being laid before Parliament, which procedure is entirely useless from a Parliamentary point of view and is merely a waste of time and paper, because there is no opportunity of discussing them. When eve come to later Amendments to the Act, the normal formula in regard to laying before the House a Motion for annulment is followed.
1.15 a.m.
I do not see my name to the Amendment and cannot understand how that could have happened, but those of us who consulted together in drawing up the Amendment felt we would not be going wrong if we followed the precedent of the Act itself and it follows Section 108A (4), which deals with the comparatively minor matter of what price ought to be paid for billets. It seems that if that has to be laid before the House and may be annulled this far more important subject should also be placed before the House and subject to annulment.
It is perhaps a little academic to discuss it here, but I hope that if a new Clause is to be introduced we might introduce into it a new principle also. I hope that in these circumstances, ahead of what the Departmental Committee may recommend—which will certainly be uniformity of practice bringing the Act in line with the rest of the Acts which deal with regulations in the same way—it will be found possible to accept the Amendment. If there is anything wrong with the drafting, it is the fault

of those who drafted the Army Act and not of those who copied it.

Mr. J. R. H. Hutchison: It seems a little churlish, after the kind things which the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler) said about me in describing this, incorrectly, as my maiden appearance on the Bill, to say, in my demi-maiden appearance, that I cannot accept the Amendment.
I do so for a number of reasons. First, I think the hon. Member may remember his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton), earlier in the debate, telling us in moving terms of the difficulty there was in following King's Regulations when an unfortunate clerk opened a door and the wind blew away the papers, and that is evidence of the number of regulations which have to be brought out in the Army and they have often to be brought out hurriedly.
For example, his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch referred to the fact that there were other new Clauses extending the principle to most of the Act. We are not dealing only with the question of enlistment, but I can give an example on enlistment where we had to move very hurriedly in connection with the Korean campaign. It would be intolerable if the Army Council had to make its instructions quickly and then wait 40 days until Parliament approved them, or, alternatively, put them into operation and have them reversed because the regulations have to lay on the Table. If we wanted to put them through and not have them reversed we would have to wait 40 days or run the risk of having them reversed by the negative Resolution procedure.

Mr. Swingler: Surely this would not put a brake on the Army Council in putting its regulations into effect. That could be done immediately. The point is that they would have to be laid on the Table of the House. They would be subject to annulment and negative Resolution procedure, but surely one can rely on the good sense of hon. Members. If there is a Prayer for annulment which is carried it means that there is a majority of opinion against the regulation and, presumably for a good reason. That would support the insertion of the Amendment.

Mr. Hutchison: The hon. Member has confirmed my fear that we might have regulations in operation and then have them annulled. I think that his hon. Friends, when in charge of the War Office, would have found it very inconvenient if these Army Council instructions and regulations had been annulled. We must remember that this Bill is an annual Bill, which is a very great protection as compared with other Bills in which we have sought to introduce the Prayer procedure. We are to have a committee and this is a matter of principle and one which will not be lost sight of. I cannot recommend the Committee to accept the Amendment.

Mr. Swingler: Surely the hon. Gentleman is not bringing forward the idea that it would be simply inconvenient for the War Office to have to study the majority opinion of the House. Surely the hon. Gentleman is not seriously asking Members of the Committee to accept the idea that, because it might happen that the majority of the elected representatives of the men serving in the Forces might find some of the Army Council instructions unacceptable, the War Office cannot have this Amendment inserted because it would be inconvenient to have the opinion of the elected representatives of the people expressed. I feel sure that the hon. Gentleman, on reflection, will feel that this argument, based on the convenience of the War Office, is not an argument designed to commend his case to the Committee. I hope he will produce something more substantial.

Mr. E. Fletcher: I think that the Under-Secretary's argument is most unsatisfactory. He said, as his first reason for resisting this Amendment, that it would produce inconvenience to the War Office and the Air Ministry, but it is no more an inconvenience to the War Office or the Air Ministry that there should be Parliamentary control over regulations made under this Act than that there should be Parliamentary control over regulations made under all other acts. The essence of control by Parliament over the executive and over this system of negative resolution is that it enables the executive to promulgate the statutory instruments. Those regulations take automatic effect as soon as they are

promulgated. They operate, but they are subject to annulment if Parliament thinks fit. No question of inconvenience arises, and no question of inconvenience ought to be urged in this Committee to derogate from the recognised rights of the House of Commons to exercise its vigilant control over all regulations made by any Government Department, whether the War Office or the Air Ministry.
I will go further. The more important the regulations which the Ministry makes, the more necessary it is that there should be strict Parliamentary control. We have Parliamentary control over pedestrian crossings made by the Ministry of Transport, all of which are subject to annulment by Resolution of this House or another place. If a minute detail of that kind is subject to annulment, it is far more important that the Executive should submit to the supervision and control of the Legislature all matters which concern the life, the safety, the welfare, and the future of the men in the Forces.
The Under-Secretary's argument was most reprehensible. I hope that, on reflection, the Secretary of State, when he returns, will reconsider this point. I do not think there is any Minister of Cabinet rank on the Front Bench at the moment, which is most unfortunate, because I do not think that the Under-Secretary's argument would have commended itself to any responsible Minister of Cabinet rank in the House today. I hope that that argument will not be used again.
The other two arguments which the hon. Gentleman used were equally unsatisfactory. I hope that before the debate on this Amendment ends we shall have the assurance that the spirit of the Amendment is accepted and will be recommended, at any rate, to the committee which is to be set up.

The Solicitor-General: The hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) has advanced arguments relating to delegated legislation with which we are all familiar and which have often been advanced in the House of Commons. This is really a drafting revision of the old Section which was somewhat cumbrous in form. We make no complaint about it, but the matter he has raised of whether regulations made by the Army Council should be subject to Prayer procedure is a very big one.
Regulations vary a great deal in degree, and this is a question to which we might, even at this hour, devote a great deal of time and argument. I suggest, now that we are to have a committee appointed, that this certainly should be a matter for consideration by them. Some very strong arguments could be advanced on the question of making regulations of this sort prayable. It is not every regulation that can be prayed against. Regulations made under Statutory Instruments are one example.
I suggest that the point has been well ventilated by hon. Members opposite and that we should not pursue the discussion, knowing full well that this is a matter which can go for consideration before the Committee. Obviously, it would be right for them to consider it. I will not express a view one way or the other on this issue, because I feel that it would be much more convenient to have it discussed in the committee and then see the result.

Mr. Strachey: I do not find much with which to quarrel in the remarks of the Solicitor-General, but the Under-Secretary suggested that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham, East (Mr. M. Stewart), when we were in office, would have disagreed with the arguments put forward by my hon. Friends behind me. He is quite mistaken in that.
There may be a case that certain Army Council instructions should not be subject to a Prayer—I do not know. I should like to hear the matter fully argued out by this Committee. But if that is so, it could not be for the reasons put forward by the Under-Secretary. His reasons sounded as if the War Office was claiming to be outside the will of Parliament. We cannot for a moment accept that suggestion. Obviously, the War Office, in all its acts—whether by the procedure of Prayer or not is another matter—big and small, is just as much under the control of the House of Commons as is any other Department.

Mr. J. R. H. Hutchison: I never intended to suggest that the War Office should be above Parliament. It was only a question of how there should be control.

Mr. Strachey: I do not suggest that the hon. Gentleman really suggested that, but it sounded like it. He suggested that in case of war—and the war in Korea was given as an example—in some ways the control of Parliament could not be applied. I am unwilling to accept that argument. It would mean that in these vital and important questions where life and death is concerned, the Army Council should be solely responsible. It is important that the view of this side of the Committee should be emphasised.

Mr. Simmons: I am not so smart as some people, but as I read this provision it has something to do with recruits for the Regular Forces. The talk about Korea was a bit of poppycock. This provision deals with enlistment into the Forces, the form of attestation and matters like that. As this is a continuing process, and the Amendment asks for regulations under the provision to be laid before Parliament, I cannot see any point in delay.
1.30 a.m.
I regard the Service Departments as the most reactionary of Government Departments. They want watching. The Argus eye should always be on them. The more Parliamentary discussion we can get concerning Service Departments the safer will be the liberties of the people in uniform. I ask the Minister to think about this again and not to put it off by saying that it will be considered by the committee which is to be set up. Let us get on with the job now. The very fact that we are here this morning shows that discussions on Service matters are so few and far between that when we do get them they take an inordinately long time. If there were more provisions for Praying with regard to Service matters the discussion could be spread wider and be more effective than perhaps it is at half-past one in the morning.

Mr. Wigg: I accept the view put forward by the Solicitor-General that this is a point which might be looked into by the Select Committee. But what disturbs me is the attitude of the Under-Secretary who talked about the convenience of the War Office. This is not the first time he has done it. On the Home Guard Bill he led my hon. Friends to believe that the House would have control over the regulations.
He did not do that to mislead; he did not know any better. I tried to persuade my hon. Friends not to accept the view put forward by the Under-Secretary on that occasion, because I knew that the regulations could not be prayed against. I am not sure that it is necessarily right that regulations should always be pray-able. Perhaps some learned Members might think that not a good arrangement.
But what the Under-Secretary must not do is to talk about the administrative convenience of the War Office. That does not matter. What does matter are the liberties and rights of the young men in the Forces and the efficiency of the Army. The administrative convenience of the War Office or the Ministers does not matter at all. The Under-Secretary has made that mistake once before over the Home Guard Bill. He has done it a second time tonight. The third time he will be unlucky and I hope that he has learned his lesson.

Mr. Bing: I am equally shocked at the attitude of the Under-Secretary. If we are to have a Select Committee the sort of attitude adopted by his Department will make any agreement impossible. The Under-Secretary says, "Look at the trouble it will cause the bureaucrats." When hon. Members opposite were on this side of the Committee and we had a Prayer against the cheese ration nobody said, "Look how embarrassing it will be to the Ministry of Food." The Ministry of Food had worked out long in advance what was to be the cheese ration, and suddenly Parliament reversed the amount of the ration. But if the Ministry of Food could manage I do not see why the War Office should not.
If we have to change over a few generals, let us have in a few people from the Ministry of Food who know how to run matters. One of the things which ought to be done is to think about clearing out some of the people who advise the Under-Secretary to make speeches of that sort. That kind of speech is not acceptable to hon. Members on this side of the Committee. I think it is part of the general pressure to put into the Act general provisions providing for complete control over the regulations issued by his Department.
Let us issue a warning to him now that the time has come when we, on this side,

are determined to bring the War Office more closely under Parliamentary scrutiny; and we are going to do the same for the Royal Navy, too. A statement such as that made by the Under-Secretary only emphasises to us on this side how necessary it is that we should do so; speeches like that do not help this Committee, and if my hon. Friends agree to the withdrawal of the Amendment it is only because we want to make clear part of a general principle. There should be proper Parliamentary control.
It is unfortunate, when hon. Members opposite have the opportunity to insert this provision in one of their own Acts, that not one of them—probably because the Patronage Secretary is there—gets up to support us in our effort to see that this great principle is implemented.

Mr. E. Fletcher: I rise again only because, when I spoke on the first occasion, the Secretary of State was temporarily absent. We on this side can all sympathise with him, for he has had a most strenuous time; he has been most attentive to the number of suggestions we have made. We have tried to put forward constructive remarks, and I would pay a tribute to the courteous and helpful manner in which he has met so many of the points put from this side of the Committee.
For these reasons, I am all the more sorry that he should have been so badly let down during his brief absence by the perfectly disgraceful speech of his Under-Secretary. The lamentable lapse of regard for any Parliamentary decency shown during the Minister's absence will be on the record, and will, I am sure, be regretted by all right hon. and hon. Members of the Government Front Bench when they read about it in HANSARD. I hope that when the departmental committee or Select Committee, considers this whole matter, there will be more evidence of proper regard for Parliamentary control, which is the reason why this Amendment has been put down.

Mr. Swingler: I think it must be agreed that we were fully justified in putting down this Amendment and in having this discussion. I, too, regret that the Secretary of State was unable to be here during part of that discussion because, had he not been absent, we


should, I think, have been able to dispose of this Clause before now.
What I rise to say is that I most seriously hope that an effort will be made to overcome the impression which will inevitably go out because of what the Under-Secretary has said. To suggest that it is inconvenient, or inexpedient, or far too much bother for the Service Departments to have to pay attention to a Parliamentary order from the House of Commons, creates a most unfortunate impression.

Mr. J. R. H. Hutchison: I must protest. I do not know whether I may have left that impression, but what I was concerned with was the efficiency of running the machine.

Mr. Bing: Exactly.

Mr. Swingler: I really think that it will be better if the Under-Secretary of State does not intervene, but accepts this position. The Under-Secretary now says that it is unnecessary to have to submit what the Army Council decides to Parliament. He submits that is inefficient. In his view, that does not apply to what the Ministers at the Ministry of Food or the Ministry of Education have to do.
But, at the War Office, sitting in their high swivel chairs, they find it inefficient to have to lay regulations on the Table. They find it inconvenient if elected Members of Parliament, within 40 days, put down a Prayer asking that the regulations be annulled. This is regarded as inconvenient and inefficient. I hope that the Secretary of State will use the opportunity now of assuring this Committee that that is not the official attitude and policy of the War Department.
I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give an assurance that it is his policy and his attitude to welcome Parliamentary discussion of Army affairs. Nobody can deny that the incorporation of these words under Section 93 of the Army Act will have the effect of providing some Parliamentary discussion of Army affairs. It will provide a greater opportunity of greater Parliamentary control over what the Army Council is doing regarding the conditions and periods of service. Does the Secretary of State welcome that, or does he find that inconvenient? It has

been suggested by the Under-Secretary that the War Office finds it inconvenient to have discussion in the House on Army affairs, that it is inconvenient to have Army regulations discussed and even annulled, and that they must not have Amendments like this because there is a possibility the majority of the hon. Members might disagree with the Army Council and decide to move a Prayer for the annulment of a regulation.
To avoid that, we should not, in the words of the Under-Secretary of State, have such a regulation as this in the Army Act. This is an extraordinary point of view. It is a point of view that the Army Council sets itself above the House of Commons and sets itself the right to be able to fly in the face of the majority opinion in the House of Commons over the instructions it issues. I fully agree with what the Solicitor-General said, that the principle here has a wider application and I entirely agree this is the sort of matter which ought to be discussed in general relation to the Army Act by the committee which is to be set-up.
The Amendment we have put down simply applies to Part II of the Army Act. As my hon. and learned Friend, the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) has said, these words are already existing in other parts of the Army Act, although I do not necessarily agree that the drafting is correct. We are engaged in considering the reform of the Army Act, but it would be better to consider, in general, the relation between Army Council regulations and instructions and Parliamentary control so long as it is done in the spirit that the Army Council, the War Office, and the Secretary of State for War, welcome Parliamentary control, and, in particular, welcome some Parliamentary discussion.
I would have thought the Secretary of State would have approached this in the spirit of saying that this is a good thing, which will lead to discussion in Parliament of Army Council regulations. It will lead to more Parliamentary interest in soldiers' conditions of service, and that is a good thing for the War Office; it is a good thing to create that interest. I therefore hope that in the latter part of our discussion the Secretary of State may go some way towards repairing some of the damage that has inevitably been done


by what, unfortunately, his Under-Secretary said during this debate in making it perfectly clear that he would welcome any reform of the Army Act which would make Parliamentary control of the Army ineffective.

1.45 a.m.

Mr. Head: I regret being absent for the first part of this discussion, although I had been here for some time before it commenced, and therefore I did not hear my hon. Friend's speech. I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite are not trying to drive a wedge between us in this matter, because from all my knowledge of my hon. Friend I am certain that the last thing he intended was that the War Office was arrogant regarding their powers vis-à-vis the House of Commons.
In the short time I have been in the War Office I have found—and I am certain that my hon. Friend has found the same—that the War Office is very well aware of the House of Commons, and very often when matters crop up people in the War Office will come and say, "Now, Secretary of State, what do you think the House of Commons will think about this?" That is a very germane matter in all questions of policy in the War Office, as the right hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey), will agree. They are only too well aware that Parliament looks at the measures they propose to introduce, and that has a very considerable influence in our considerations.
I assure hon. Gentlemen who think that our view in the War Office is that we will steamroller over Parliament and have no consideration of such matters that they are quite wrong. The hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing), makes many speeches on military matters, and his speeches are studied in the War Office. They even say, "What will the Member for Hornchurch say about the recruiting for the Home Guard in Northern Ireland?"

Mr. Bing: Perhaps that is why there is not one.

Mr. Head: It seems to me that on this Clause we are embarking on something which we discussed at considerable length during the Home Guard Bill, when many hon. Members were present—this vexed question of delegated legislation. I was present during the whole of that

discussion and heard the many speeches on it. I do not think we will ever reach a satisfactory agreement on this matter here, because it is a peculiarly complicated question. Although we have been accused of always opposing delegated legislation when in opposition and then on the Home Guard Bill proposing it from this side of the Committee, we shall not get a solution by discussion, particularly at 1.50 in the morning. This is supremely a question which is fitted for discussion by the committee we propose to set up.
Parliament is extremely jealous of giving undue powers to any organisation, and I am certain my hon. Friend did not mean to suggest that the War Office is an organisation which ignores Parliament. If I am not out of order in saying so, one glance at this Box will prove that. We are only too interested both in this debate and in trying to convince Parliament that we are not in any way usurping powers in any respect.
I see that the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch seems to be ready to give us some more matters to consider, but I would suggest that we already have a great deal to read through in HANSARD; that on this matter a great deal has already been said which might well be discussed by the committee we are to set up, and that it is quite hopeless for the House of Commons at this time of the day to hope to resolve it in a few speeches, so that we usurp the duties of the committee. I suggest that if the hon. and learned Gentleman wants to protract the debate on this Clause he will profit no one, and least of all, our own debate.

Mr. M. Stewart: I think that possibly a few words from the Under-Secretary may clear up this matter. We do not want to press this unduly, but if the remarks of the Under-Secretary had been made from that Box by any member of the late Government they would have provoked a howl of protest at the time from every hon. Member then on the opposite side of the Chamber, and would have been quoted again and again, in season and out of season, for months, as evidence that the party from which they had come had contempt for Parliament. I assure hon. Members on that side that whatever the Under-Secretary intended, that was certainly the tenor of what he said.
When the hon. Gentleman's attention was drawn to it he said he wanted to make a protest. I suggest that that is not the right way to regard this matter. It is possible for a junior Minister, particularly one comparatively new to the job, and especially at this time of the morning, to use unfortunate words. I can remember an occasion when I did so. I remember vividly one occasion when the Solicitor-General pointed out at considerable length that I had done so. I am sure that he does not remember it, because he finds fault with other people so often that no doubt he does not recall that occasion.
Let us take a charitable assumption that that is what has happened, that the Under-Secretary did not quite realise the purport of what he was saying. I suggest that what is wanted is not so much a protest from him as an apology.

Mr. Bing: May I underline the view held strongly on this side of the Committee that to talk of the efficiency of the War Office and to suggest that if regulations which are proposed, and for which the Secretary of State presumably has taken political responsibility, are disclosed to the House of Commons will be overthrown even though his party enjoys a majority, does not imply that the War Office has much faith in its political heads.
If the Secretary takes political responsibility for a regulation, why should it be thrown over by the House? Does not he not have sufficient confidence in his own party? The whole argument of the Under-Secretary was that if the House were allowed to consider these things the House could throw them over. That cannot be right. Regulations are continually being laid, and it is one of my jobs, and of the hon. Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher), to read them. There are regulations for stopping up roads in Northern Ireland, but we have never called attention to them in this House. There are regulations for all sorts of purposes. Why should it be wrong that these important regulations, dealing with the lives of ordinary people, should not be subject to being laid in the House.
I grant that there may be arguments in favour of not putting this in the Bill at this point; but if there are any, they are not the arguments put forward by

the Under-Secretary. He was careful to put forward arguments which were demonstrably absurd. How absurd can be seen by looking at the Section from which this is taken.
This Amendment concerns section 108A, which provides regulations in regard to billeting in times of emergency. It says:
His Majesty by Order distinctly stating that a case of emergency exists, and signified by a Secretary of State, may authorise any general or field officer commanding any part of His Majesty's forces in any military district or place in the United Kingdom, to issue a billeting requisition …
Even so, in a state of emergency, the Army Act provides that the prices of these billets shall be laid before the House. If that is possible in that case, why is it not possible in this? There may be some argument we have not heard here, yet all that we have heard is the hon. Gentleman's defence of bureaucracy. He said that this would interfere with the efficiency of the War Office. So does a Prayer against the cheese ration interfere with the efficiency of the Ministry of Food, and a Prayer against a development order interfere with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. Every type of Parliamentary control is, of course, attacked by the typical bureaucrat.
We have got on very well in this Committee tonight. Let us have no more of this sort of nonsense from the Under-Secretary. I would add my plea to those made from this Front Bench that the Under-Secretary should get up and say that because it was rather late at night he made a stupid mistake and did not really mean that the House of Commons should not have an opportunity of looking at this matter. We have all been late practically every night, but I think my hon. Friend is determined to press this, and if the Under-Secretary is not prepared to get up, we shall have to listen to speeches from other hon. Gentlemen.

Mr. Peter Legh: We have listened in the last half hour to some very high-minded sentiments from hon. Members opposite. We have been told there is the greatest possible need for discussion of Service matters and that they are to see there is the fullest possible Parliamentary control. If we are to have the extra debates we are


promised I hope that hon. Members will be able to persuade more of their hon. Friends to take an interest. It seems to me to be a remarkable thing that we should be discussing Opposition Amendments at 2 o'clock in the morning, and being lectured by the Opposition on the need for the fullest Parliamentary scrutiny of these matters, when there are only, I think, six hon. Members of the Opposition present.

Mr. M. Stewart: That is an extraordinary statement—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—I am glad at least to have provoked some kind of life from hon. Members below the Gangway. We started our consideration of the Bill tonight after an agreement one of the purposes of which was to prevent the House having to spend an intolerably long time on the Army Act.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Not an intolerably long time; day after day, night after night.

Mr. Stewart: A great number of my hon. Friends, who would have liked to have taken part in this debate, were eager for the debate and were here for many previous hours, when we saw no sign of the hon. Member for Petersfield (Mr. Legh) who has just spoken. In pursuance of the decision of the Government and as part of the agreement without entering into the large projects which we should have liked, many of my hon. Friends have refrained even in the matters we have discussed from putting forward many points of view dear to them in one Amendment after another.
Now it is suggested there should be more of my hon. Friends here. I wonder if the desire that they should be taking an active part in the proceedings is really shared by hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench. I think it is extremely improbable. After we have had one piece of ineptitude from the Front Bench, which has already prolonged the proceedings quite unnecessarily—and the Under-Secretary's obstinacy in refusing to take the obvious course has prolonged it further—we have a piece of ineptitude from the back benches which shows that the hon. Member for Petersfield has not grasped the whole position in regard to the Army Act.
This is too much. If the hon. Member really wishes to see the benches this side

full with hon. Members anxious to prolong this discussion, I dare say that his wishes can easily be fulfilled. But is that really what the more responsible Members of the Government Party want? I hope they will make that clear.

Mr. Head: There have been comments from the other side on this matter, and with the exception of the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing), who moved the Amendment, I have answered Most of them. It seems to me that it is not of much profit to discuss this Clause at any great length when we are setting up a committee for that purpose. As it is late and there are one or two substantial Clauses to come I suggest that we might proceed, for there may be some interesting points of dissension.
The hon. Member for Petersfield (Mr. Legh) made remarks that were not acceptable opposite. It is strange that there have not been more inflammatory remarks in the debate. I suggest that it might profit the Committee if we could move on to the matter of the exclusion of women from liability to service.

Mr. Swingler: I welcome the attitude of the Secretary of State. We ought to be careful, when settlements like the present one are made, not to use the settlements as an excuse for not treating the issue seriously. The parrot cry, "Refer it to the committee," just because a committee is to be established, becomes a bit dangerous. If Amendments are not looked at seriously, and if there is the kind of ruthless statement made by the Under-Secretary, the result is merely to inflame the Committee, cause provocative speeches, and stimulate a long discussion. An apology has not been forthcoming from the Under-Secretary, but we welcome the assurance from the Secretary of State on Parliamentary control of the Army and Parliamentary discussion. We also welcome the reference of this question to the committee. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 9 to 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 12.—(SAVINGS FOR REGULATIONS AND RULES.)

Mr. Head: I beg to move, in page 14, line 35, to leave out "in force," and to insert "so to have effect."
This is an extremely simple drafting Amendment. Hon. Members will realise that it is a matter of the English language rather than meaning or anything else. It might, indeed, be considered redundant at this hour of the night when we are going to reconsider this particular Measure.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 14.—(AMENDMENT OF S. 190 OF ARMY ACT AND AIR FORCE ACT, AND CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS.)

Mr. Bing: I beg to move, in page 15, line 28, at the end, to insert:
(b) the following definition shall be inserted in the section in the appropriate place:—
( ) 'countersign' includes any secret or confidential call sign, code word, code or cipher employed in the making of signals between any of Her Majesty's forces whether by speech or writing or whether by telegraphy or telephony by means of wireless, line, semaphore, heliograph or otherwise.
This is one of the Amendments that is really a type of new Clause. I had a lucky dip, so to speak, because my new Clause happened to come out as an Amendment. This is typical of the difficulty we are in with regard to the Army Act—the difficulty whether we should redraft it entirely or use old terms and try to attach to them modern meanings. Clearly the Section providing for the death penalty for disclosing paroles and countersigns means little unless it is designed to deal with the practical technical nature of wireless communication and the like.
The matters that are really important if they are disclosed are home and call signs and the like, and if we were really going to discuss this I would have gone in some degree into the types of carelessness and the like which can result in the disclosure of a code or call sign, and in particular the adding of unauthorised words to messages which may give an

indication of the origin of the sender, enabling the station to be traced or something of that sort and thus imperilling the whole organisation of the unit. This is the sort of thing which ought to be considered by the Committee which it is proposed to set up. I do not press it, and if the right hon. Gentleman cares to say a word or two about it we shall be glad to hear what he has to say. If he is not prepared to say anything, I can say in advance that I am prepared to withdraw it.

2.0 a.m.

Mr. Head: I appreciate that the word "countersign" is one which is not generally understood. The difference between the password and countersign is a matter of discussion in my Department. I think the hon. and learned Gentleman has been somewhat ebullient in his remarks about the extension of countersign which, so far as I can see, includes any messages passed between Her Majesty's ships. I do not know if the First Lord of the Admiralty is here, but the hon. and learned Gentleman has gone a bit wide in his Amendment.
It is very interesting to read a great many of these definitions. Some of them are far from satisfactory. It will be found that the word "aircraft" includes "kites," and there are all kinds of other interesting matters. I appreciate the intention behind the Amendment. It is part of a very large whole, and I think everyone will agree that to attempt to deal with this Amendment by putting it into this Bill is like putting a shiny pin into a haystack of rusty ones. Therefore, I agree that we should leave it to the Committee to determine which of these things are antiquated and which are not.

Mr. Bing: While I shall try to catch your eye, Sir Charles, on the Clause stand part, I will for the moment beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Bing: I only want to say a word about altering the definition of "horse." It is one of the strange things in regard to the Army Act that the definition of horse includes both elephants and


camels, and that is the sort of looseness of definition that has got to be looked at by the committee. If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the definition of "horse" he will find that it includes any form of animal and, indeed, any form of beast at all, and it includes specifically the mule and by implication any type of animal. This definition Clause is so wide as to make the whole of the Army Act largely nonsense.
These are the sort of points that have to be looked at by this committee which is being set up. It seems to me that they will have to look at the matter from three sides, firstly, questions of policy, secondly, the implementation of new ideas and new law and, thirdly, the tidying up of this sort of thing. It seems rather foolish if we have more mention of horses than aircraft in the Air Force Act, a matter which we have not discussed, and when we come to examine horses we find that they can be elephants. In fact, the Air Force officer who arrives with his elephant to billet is entitled to a large store of food, and from what I know of elephants much of it would be unsuitable. It is this sort of provision which makes our law a laughing stock. When we come to a re-definition of the Clause we will deal with this as well as with other things.

Mr. Head: The mind of the hon. and learned Member may be set at rest when I assure him that my thoughts will be on horses during the week-end. This could also apply to zebras. I understand the point the hon. and learned Member has raised, which is applicable to the whole of this Measure.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 15 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 16.—(PRINTING OF AMENDMENTS TO ARMY AND AIR FORCE ACTS.)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. E. Fletcher: Is it the intention to repeal the Act of 1942 in view of the fact that we are to have a Select Committee? Is it still thought desirable to reprint the old Act with the Amendments

which will be made in the present Bill, or is it preferred to delay reprinting the Act until the committee have sat and reported?

Mr. Head: I have the hon. Member's point. The original intention was that there should be a vow of abstinence about the reprinting of the Act during the war as an economy measure, and the intention of the Clause was to repeal that provision. The hon. Member is quite right. We now find ourselves in a somewhat difficult position, and I am in the hands of the Committee. Whether it is really worth reprinting the Bill after this, I am not certain. My feeling would be that as we have appointed the committee and we have not made an immensely good job during the discussions in bringing this up-to-date, the best thing would be to let the Clause stand and, subject to the agreement of the House, to take no action pending the committee sitting and bringing the Act up-to-date. As soon as that takes place we have the Clause ready-made whereby we can print what will be an up-to-date and adequate Act.

Mr. Bing: I suppose it is possible, as was done in the 1949 Act, for the Parliamentary draftsmen to produce a draft which is not an official print. It may be undesirable to issue officially an Act which, however divided we are, we agree is undesirable and give the impression that this is an official act. One of the difficulties of those who drafted these Amendments has been that there was no up-to-date copy, and any committee working on the matter would want an up-to-date copy. It may be possible for the Parliamentary draftsmen to produce such a draft with marginal notes of where everything comes from, rather than an official reprint. If we passed the Clause as it is now, it might be undesirable for the Government to put themselves under a statutory obligation to publish the Act. It might be a waste of money and lead some people to think that these were the final conclusions of the Committee, whereas in fact they are not.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 17 and 18 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

New Clause.—(AMENDMENT OF DEFINITION OF "DECORATION.")

The following New Clause stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Mr. HEAD:
Section one hundred and ninety of the Army Act and section one hundred and ninety of the Air Force Act shall each have effect with the substitution, for the definition of "decoration" in paragraph (18) thereof, of the following definition:—
'decoration' includes any medal, clasp or good-conduct badge.

2.15 a.m.

Mr. Head: I gave an undertaking yesterday that I would move this and the following new Clauses relating to 8-day reports and volunteers.
I would suggest that, in view of my undertaking and the appointment of a new committee, it would be more desirable—I am entirely in the hands of the Committee—to leave them for consideration by the committee as they are not of very considerable moment. One is to leave out militia, and the other is to leave out volunteers. In the light of the task which is to come before the committee, it is more satisfactory that I should leave them for the time being.

Mr. Strachey: I think that is satisfactory.

Mr. Head: I did wish to include all three of my new Clauses, including the one concerning declarations.

Mr. Bing: The first one in regard to declarations is a generous action on the part of the right hon. Gentleman in response to an Amendment moved by myself. That is one which might well stand over. It seems to me that the second of the right hon. Gentleman's Clauses, on the 8-day report, does contain a matter of value. The third Clause is one which deals with the volunteers in the militia and is also in response to an Amendment. I would be perfectly prepared to see that matter stand over until we re-define the matter generally. The 8-day report Clause is rather different, and if that were moved it would probably be of some value, generally speaking.

Mr. Head: I agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman. That is a Clause of substance, which forms a considerable

part of recommendations which will be incorporated in the Bill. We are taking one particular part, which I gave an undertaking to introduce. We are taking one small part and putting it in, and a great many of its followers will be coming into the Bill at a later stage, because this results from the recommendation of the Lewis Committee. I am in the hands of the Committee. If hon. Members want it in, I can do it now—I have no strong feelings on the matter.

Mr. Wigg: I am inclined to think that the Secretary of State is right. To take it out with the other two and leave it to go to the committee … that would be the most satisfactory thing. It is not a matter of any great moment and I think it would be far better if we left it for the time being.

Mr. Fletcher: I do not agree.

The Chairman: We are really debating nothing now at the moment.

Mr. E. Fletcher: On a point of order. Am I to understand that we are now proceeding to the Schedules without dealing with the other new Clauses?

The Chairman: I was led to believe that the three new Clauses were not to be moved.

Mr. Fletcher: There are various other new Clauses. I was asking you about various other new Clauses and whether you are prepared to take them before we come to the Schedules.

Mr. Strachey: I think that it would be appropriate if I suggested that, collectively, as it were, and in the circumstances of which the Committee are well aware, we on this side abstained from moving the somewhat numerous new Clauses which are on the Order Paper in our names.

Orders of the Day — First Schedule.—(AMENDMENTS OF THE ARMY ACT CONSEQUENTIAL ON PART II OF THIS ACT.)

Amendment made: In page 18, line 36, leave out "he," and insert "a soldier."—[Mr. Head.]

Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Second Schedule agreed to.

New Schedule.—(AMENDMENTS OF ARMY ACT FOR PURPOSE OF REMOVAL OF REFERENCES TO VOLUNTEERS, &amp;C.)


Sections to be amended
Amendments to be made


Section 13
…
…
…
In subsection (1), in paragraph (b), for the words "any of the reserve forces" there shall be substituted the words "the army reserve."


Section 27
…
…
…
In paragraph (3) for the words "reserve forces or auxiliary forces" there shall be substituted the words "the army reserve or the territorial army."


Section 101
…
…
…
In subsection (2) the word "force" shall be omitted.


Section 115
…
…
…
In subsection (9), for the words "the regular or auxiliary forces" there shall be substituted the words "the regular forces or the territorial army."


Section 138
…
…
…
In paragraph (5), for the words "the auxiliary forces," in each place where they occur, there shall be substituted the words "the territorial army."


Section 142
…
…
…
In subsection (2), for the words "the regular reserve or auxiliary forces," there shall be substituted the words "the regular forces, the army reserve or the territorial army."


Section 175
…
…
…
In paragraph (2), for the words "the permanent staffs of any of the auxiliary forces" there shall be substituted the words "the permanent staff of the territorial army."



Paragraphs (5) and (6) shall be omitted.



In paragraph (10) the words from "if an officer" to "such a commission" shall be omitted.



In paragraph (11) for the words "the regular, reserve, or auxiliary forces," there shall be substituted the words "the regular forces, the army reserve or the territorial army."


Section 176
…
…
…
In paragraph (2), for the words "any of the auxiliary forces" there shall be substituted the words "the territorial army."



In paragraph (5) the word "force" shall be omitted.



Paragraph (8) shall be omitted.



In paragraph (8A) for the words "the regular, reserve, or auxiliary forces" there shall be substituted the words "the regular forces, the army reserve or the territorial army."


Section 177
…
…
…
In the second paragraph, for the words "the regular reserves or auxiliary forces" there shall be substituted the words "the regular forces, the army reserve or the territorial army."


Section 178
…
…
…
For the words "the auxiliary forces" there shall be substituted the words "the territorial army" and for the words "the reserve forces" there shall be substituted the words "the army reserve."


Section 179B
…
…
…
In subsection (2) the word "force" shall be omitted.


Section 181
…
…
…
In subsection (1) for the words "enlisted or enrolled in any of His Majesty's auxiliary forces" there shall be substituted the words "enlisted in the territorial army."



In subsection (2) for the words "the auxiliary forces" there shall be substituted the words "the territorial army."



In subsection (3) for the words "His Majesty's auxiliary forces" there shall be substituted the words "the territorial army."



In subsection (4) the following shall be omitted, that is to say, the words "or the battalion or corps of volunteers" paragraph (d), the words "or a battalion or corps of volunteers" and the words "or volunteers."



In subsection (6) the words "the volunteers or" shall be omitted.


Section 187
…
…
…
In paragraph (3) for the words "the auxiliary forces" there shall be substituted the words "the territorial army."


Section 190
…
…
…
In paragraph (8) for the words "the reserve forces" there shall be substituted the words "the army reserve," and paragraphs (9), (10) and (12) shall be omitted.—[Mr. Head.]

Orders of the Day — Clause 7.—(NEW PROVISIONS WITH RESPECT TO ENLISTMENT.)

Mr. Wigg: I beg to move, in page 6, line 1, after "years," to insert:
or after he has served twelve years by such notice given three months before any date he shall choose.
We on this side of the House attach great importance to this Amendment. It is nothing new. It covers a regulation which exists at present whereby a Regular soldier after 12 years can obtain a discharge free, having given three months' notice. We feel that the proposal which the Secretary of State has put forward which enables a man to enlist for a period of 22 years and then to leave the Service at three-year intervals will be much improved if he accepts our Amendment to give the same freedom, after 12 years, as a soldier has got at present.
I do not want to take up too much time, but what would happen to a Regular soldier when he is in the middle of his career is of very great importance both to his own contentment and to his value to the Army, and also to his potential value as a recruiting agent. This right of the Regular soldier to obtain a free discharge after 12 years is one which is greatly valued. I am sure that if it is removed—if it is a right denied to the recruits which the Secretary of State hopes to get as a result of his new proposals—then in the long run it must make for a great deal of discontent.
I am sure that the Secretary of State is fully seized of the point I am making. It is covered by the discharge provision in paragraph 399 (a) of Queen's Regulations, and I hope very much that he will he able to accept our Amendment. If he cannot, we should be much obliged if he would explain fully why he cannot do it. It seems such an obvious point that one almost wonders why he did not propose an Amendment himself. If I am wrong there must be some mistake in my reasoning, because it seems to me to be an obvious point.

Mr. E. Fletcher: I beg to second the Amendment.
There is very little I need add to what has been said. It will be remembered that this is one of the Amendments to Clause 7 that was not discussed during the Committee stage of the Bill. Unless these words are added, the state of the

serving soldier is worsened as compared with recruits. It seems essentially reasonable that men who have served 12 years should have this right by giving three months' notice terminating their service. I also hope that the Secretary of State will be able to accept this Amendment.

Mr. Head: I can assure both the hon. Members that this question has been considered. The whole system of engagement in the Army has up to now been on a 12-year basis, and there have been varying combinations of the period of Colour Service and Reserve Service. Both periods have been longer than the present engagement. They have been either five and seven years, or seven and five. We are proposing three-year intervals up to 22 years. A man who joins for 22 years can go after 12 years service, and what hon. Members are worried about is that after that period he must go after a short notice.
A man who has applied for 12 years service in the past can take on for 21. One of several different things may happen because there is great flexibility in this new engagement. One is that a man can go after 12 or 15 years. In addition, we have powers in the Act whereby a man can translate Colour service into Reserve service. We have no cause or reason to resist that type of conversion. In addition, a man can also apply whenever he wishes for compassionate reasons. By September, 1953, purchase will have returned. If we were to make the right to opt out at three month's notice we should be placed in a difficulty. I will give an instance.
Supposing under the present engagement a man was posted somewhere and found he did not look forward to it. He could choose to go at three months notice. He would be out and would be sent home to this country which he must reach by the time he has opted out. During that three months he could perhaps re-enlist and thereby avoid a certain period of service he did not wish to do.
I believe there has been great fairness in considering this regulation in the Bill whereby a man must give six month's notice before he opts out of his three-year period. To allow him to go at any time at only three months notice would result in a state of affairs whereby that right could be worked under a complicated system so that a man could take


advantage of others and be posted to his own advantage.
I can assure hon. Members that this privilege has been carefully considered and we have come to the conclusion that, by and large, under the 22-year engagement a man has very good chances of going out, and is not really being held within the Service in any way which could suggest that we were prolonging his service.
Indeed, it is far less than the other engagement, although in the particular matter which the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) raised one might make a case—but it is not a case which bears detailed examination—of exploitation, if one were to allow a man to complete 12 years and for the rest of the 10 years to give three months' notice.

Mr. Wigg: The Secretary of State is no doubt aware that under the existing regulations there are safeguards to prevent the exploitation to which he has referred. He states that he has gone into this with great care. Do I understand that we are to have two sets of regulations operating at the same time?

2.30 a.m.

Mr. Head: What this Amendment does is to introduce new regulations and, at the same time, states that the man on a previous type of engagement under the old regulations which we have repealed—which we have thrown into the sea—shall be pulled out of the sea, so to speak, and apply so long as he remains on the old type engagement. It will be applicable to him, although we have now thrown it over, and the period will arrive when this will disappear with what one might term the "old sweats", and will eventually drop out altogether.

Mr. Wigg: The Secretary of State will agree that the concession applying to the Regular soldier at the present time is covered, not by the Army Act, but by King's Regulations, and I would like to ask if this regulation will apply until everybody comes under the new Part Two of the Army Act, and will then disappear?

Mr. Head: indicated assent.

Mr. Wigg: I thank the right hon. Gentleman, and could I now ask if I am to understand that new regulations have

been introduced where a man with 12 years' service can revert? As the Minister knows, the original period of engagement of a further 12 years was always partly with the colours and partly with the Reserve so that any service after 12 years does not arise unless the man takes on as a Supplementary Reservist or on a Class "D" engagement.

Mr. Head: The hon. Member is quite right. No man who has completed 12 years' service has any Reserve liabilities, but any man who has completed 12 years and wishes to turn over to the 22 years' scheme can do so, and at once he comes under the 22 years' regulations. There are extremely detailed regulations within the Bill which cover convertibility of all out-of-date engagements on to the new 22 years' scheme. They cover, among many other things, the Royal Marines who wish to come on to our 22 years' engagement; I mention that because I think it was asked by an hon. Member opposite.

Mr. Wigg: Will the Select Committee be able to consider this proposal?

Mr. Head: The entire Act, as amended by the House, will be before the Committee for its consideration.

Mr. Strachey: I agree that this must be considered by the Committee, and I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has put forward. But, I am bound to think that this is an unfortunate bit of cheeseparing, not in money, but in time, on the part of the War Office. This is taking away a right perhaps not a very big one—from a set of men when there is an overall improvement. Surely, if one takes away something in a matter such as this, one is apt to spoil the whole of one's concession, and a concession has been made. I hope that the Minister will view this with an open mind.
It is the same point, in principle, as that which we discussed in relation to boys. The general idea that the Army can be built up by retaining men is very much open to question. The right of a man serving for 12 years to leave at three months has always existed, exists now, and it is a pity that it should be removed. I do submit that this will spoil the impact of the new scheme. Therefore, I do hope we will get our view on this taken very seriously into account.

Mr. Wigg: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."—[Mr. Redmayne.]

2.36 a.m.

Mr. Bing: It would be a great mistake, in view of the large number of Members opposite who have remained here throughout this debate, although not having taken any active part in the matter except to listen to all the arguments put from this side, if I did not say a word in gratitude to them for having remained, and having remained silent. Our proceedings would have been far more attractive had they joined in, but I do not think they would have been any more valuable. I should like to say on behalf of my hon. Friend, who will want to say a word on the Third Reading, that we all very sincerely appreciate the arrangements made by the Secretary of State for War in order to facilitate the reform of this Bill.
As we are on a rather historic occasion, probably passing the Army Act in its old form for the last time, it is proper that one or two of us who have suffered under it should say, that while we are prepared to pass it on this occasion, we are glad to know this is the last occasion we shall be called upon to pass this particular Act. This is not a good Bill. It is a very bad Bill. It contains a great number of very bad provisions. Had we had the opportunity of dealing with them them, as we thought we would have, we should have dealt with the provision regarding barrack damages, an appalling thing. To any who have suffered under it, it is a most depressing thing. I do not know how many hon. Members opposite have been on a charge. If they have been, they will know how depressing it is, and in the absence of any opportunity of defending oneself, under the conditions which exist, it needed the utmost ingenuity to escape it.
The procedure regarding charges is one of those bad features which the Bill contains. It is unusual to reject the Army Act on its Third Reading, and I am not suggesting this now, but that is no reason why we should not notice its bad features and make it clear to the country that we do not accept it in its present

form; and it will be clear that we on this side have been opposed to it throughout.
I hope that one or two of my hon. Friends will take the same point of view as myself and make clear, in saying "Good-bye" to this bad old Army Act, that we have in these two days done a really useful task for the ordinary men now being conscripted into the Forces, despite the silence of the hon. Gentlemen opposite, and in showing that, even though they remained silent, it is possible for an Opposition to reach a point where a bad Act can be repealed. All hon. Members on this side, and I am glad to see we are so well represented, can feel we have done a really good day's work. I for one, do not regret the time we have spent on this Measure.

2.39 a.m.

Mr. Head: I am sorry that the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing), chose to end this debate on a party note. I agree that hon. Members have done a lot of work on this Bill, and I make no point about this protracted debate. We have brought in a Measure, which, we believe, will be of use to the Army. We have made certain Amendments. I have not the least doubt that if we had not done that, all this would not have happened. Let any hon. Gentleman attempt to claim the credit as he wishes, but I suggest that this has been the result of our amending the Army Act in order to improve the efficiency of Her Majesty's Forces, which is not particularly a party matter.
The Opposition have found an old cupboard full of bones, dust, and decaying matter. Now the hon. and learned Gentleman gets up to make a party point. The only party point I will make is that our Amendments, I believe, will be helpful to the Army, and that as a result of the action of the entire House we shall have a Bill much more worthy of the Army and Air Force than it was before.
In my opinion it is a pity that any party should claim credit for that fact. The credit belongs to the common sense of the House, which has got together and solved a difficult problem by producing a Bill which will be worth something. If we had not agreed upon this there would have been only one finish to this debate: an immense loss of sleep, a certain loss


of temper, and a mangled mess of a Bill instead of what I hope we shall have after this committee has set to work. Surely we can leave this Bill now without any more quarrelling or any more attempts to claim credit for it. With the one desire of giving a proper instrument for governing Her Majesty's Army and Air Force, I hope the House of Commons will join together and do their best to make it worthy of the Forces.

2.41 a.m.

Mr. Strachey: I had no intention of intervening on the Third Reading, but I do want to say a few words after the speech of the Secretary of State. I think it would be inappropriate and unfortunate to bandy party points at this stage, but I cannot allow his account of our proceedings to pass without some comment from this Front Bench. What has happened has not quite arisen in the way he suggested.
Certainly the right hon. Gentleman gave credit to the House as a whole, but let us not doubt that what has happened arose from the fact that we on this side—and I would certainly mention here my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) in particular—decided to make a very drastic and, indeed, protracted attempt to improve this Act, which had never been done before. That attempt did not have to be carried' through to its logical conclusion, but out of the clash which resulted, and certainly with no intention on the part of the Government when they first came to the House with the Measure—

Mr. Head: Is it fair to say there was no attempt on the part of the Government? The party opposite was in power for six years, and the right hon. Gentleman himself was at the War Office for part of the time, but there was then not the slightest sign of their seeking the desirable end which he now claims. There was no sign or attempt to do anything about this Act. He now gets up and says there was no sign of Her Majesty's Government now doing anything about it. We have done something about it with all these Amendments. He had six years in which to do something about it, but nothing whatever was done. Need we really go into all this? [Laughter.] The right hon. Gentleman laughs, but he has a very wobbly case indeed. He

was Secretary of State for War; he could have read the Army Act perfectly well, and the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch could have done the same.

Mr. Speaker: I would point out that this is the Third Reading and not the Committee stage.

Mr. Strachey: I will not follow up the right hon. Gentleman's extremely heated intervention but will proceed with the remarks I was making. It is not at all the case, as he has just stated, that the late Government made no amendment of the Army Act. They made a good many, and he has now produced some—and some useful ones, too. I was talking on the other issue.
We embarked on a major attempt, which would undoubtedly have detained the House for a very long time, to remodel this Act from top to bottom, and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), and others, did an immense amount of work on it. That work has not been directly fruitful in that their new Clauses were accepted, but out of the clash which resulted from their very strenuous opposition to the Government Measure, and because they and the party as a whole took that initiative, we are to have set up this committee, which I feel confident will result in a new and totally different Army Act, with a different date of termination and different Sections. It will be a thoroughly modernised Act. Certainly we on this side cannot let the right hon. Gentleman get away with the idea that that was done on the initiative of the Government.
It was done in the teeth of the original intentions of the Government, and it was done on the initiative of this side of the House. Since this claim and counterclaim have been made, I must state firmly for the Opposition that if this results in a vastly improved Army Act, which is a matter of importance to millions of citizens, the initiative will have come from the official Opposition.

2.45 a.m.

Mr. E. Fletcher: I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch that this is an historic occasion. Therefore, I make no apology for saying a few words. The history of this subject is one of im-


portance. The whole history of the British Army is one of spasmodic growth. It is a matter of significance that ever since there has been an army the Army Act has been kept in existence year after year by the Government of the day having to get the House to renew the Act. I agree that hon. Members on this side, and particularly the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing), are entitled to a great deal of credit for the work they have done.
I think it was ungenerous of the Secretary of State for War not to acknowledge the value of a great many of the Amendments which have been discussed, and of several of the new Clauses which were put down; and especially of the Amendments which emerged from the Lewis and other Committees. No one can deny that but for the initiative and industry of the Opposition there would not have been this overhaul of the Army Act.

Mr. Head: I would never go back on the fact, which I have stated repeatedly during the Debate, that many hon. Members have done a great deal of research in producing new Clauses. What I said, and repeat, is that we amended the Army Act and, as a result of having to bring it before the House, hon. Members opposite read the Act and found what it consisted of. I said, and say again, that I do not think there is much point in attempting to say that this or that Party is responsible. What really is responsible is the fact that this Act had not been touched since 1881, and that we opened it up, and now the House has decided to do something about it.

Mr. Fletcher: I think it is unfortunate that we should conclude—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State says that he opened up the Bill and brought it to the House. It had to come here. He had to come to Parliament to renew it. I do not want to claim any undue measure of credit. I believe that my hon. Friends and I were merely doing our duty, as members of an efficient Opposition, to examine this Army Act and to take the trouble to frame Amendments. I think we are entitled to credit for that. It is remarkable Parliamentary episode which we have witnessed during the last few days. I doubt whether the country has realised what would have been the effect on the Government, and on the Parliamentary

timetable, if agreement had not been reached as a result of the goodwill we have shown.
For a long time it looked as if there would be no agreement, and even if there was an agreement between the two Front Benches, it by no means followed that all hon. Members on these benches who had put down Amendments would feel obliged to withdraw those Amendments. Does the country yet realise what the situation would have been? If there had been no agreement we should have been here on Committee and Report stages for several more days before we could come to the Third Reading, and it would have been the duty of the House to do it. It would have been the duty of the Government to give Parliamentary time to passing this Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill even at the cost of their National Health Bill and all the other Bills.

Mr. Buchan-Hepburn: And the Easter Recess.

Mr. Fletcher: And the Easter Recess.

Mr. Speaker: There is nothing about the Easter Recess or the accommodation between the Front Benches or any of these matters in the Bill.

Mr. Fletcher: I was led into the subject by the remarks made by the Secretary of State and by the intervention of the Patronage Secretary. It is worth while for the House to remind itself of the thanks due to the great industry and zeal of the Opposition over several weeks and to the great sense of co-operation and good will which they have shown towards Her Majesty's Government in the last day or so in rescuing them from a situation of very great Parliamentary embarrassment. We have now arrived at a stage when we can not only proceed to give this Bill a Third Reading but also look forward to the appointment of the Select Committee which will overhaul all the deficiencies of the Army Act and, in accordance with the promise made by the Government, enable us in a short time to have a new, modernised and up to date version of the Army Act.

2.53 a.m.

Mr. Simmons: I should like to speed this Bill to its last resting place as one who over 40 years ago suffered from some of its provisions. My hon. Friends


mentioned barrack room damages—it is hard lines when a teetotaller has to suffer as a result of the drunks coming in. That is what barrack room damages meant. There are other things, such as field punishment. I played a part in bringing field punishment to public attention, and suffered myself three months imprisonment in a civil gaol for doing so. I am glad to see the old form of field punishment is gone, and I hope that as a result of the deliberations of the committee which will be set up we shall further expunge from the Army Act those things which are outside civilised life to civilised people.
It has been done gradually, and I think we can congratulate ourselves. I do not wish to enter into controversy here tonight, but I am the only one who has not had his questions answered. I suppose, being a private, that can be expected. I asked the Secretary of State very earnestly whether he would see that the private soldier had representation on the Departmental Committee. There was no reply.
I have tried in these debates to be accommodating, and I appealed the other night for a pooling of brains and ideas. We get only silence from the other side. That is what hurts us. We are being condemned because there is only a small gallant band here and a horde over there, but the small band was vociferous and active while the horde was dumb. Surely, especially during the Committee stage, it was the duty of those who represent the various branches of Her Majesty's Forces—and there are many illustrious representatives of the forces over there—to make their contribution.
Another thing that hurt us was the sneer of the Leader of the House that we had a new-found concern for the armed forces and the Army in particular. In all my political life, which is fairly long now, the party opposite has claimed the Army almost as its personal property, and they resent us speaking on this issue. I would say to the Secretary of State only this—my hon. Friends came into this matter with a desire to co-operate, and we welcome the co-operation from that side that has brought about the promise to set up the Select Committee.
But we cannot let the occasion pass without reiterating that the hotch-potch Amendments to the Army Act, on the Secretary of State's own admission, would

have left an ugly and cumbersome Bill. All the Acts of the Labour Government for six years have now been canalised into new Clauses and have provided the material for the Committee to work on. It is due to the initiative and drive of a few Opposition Members that this matter has been brought to a head. We have proved that you can negotiate from strength better than from weakness.

Mr. Swingler: We realise the Secretary of State is tired and we appreciate his co-operation. It would be a pity if he went away under the illusion that this is the first time the Army Bill has been produced full of Amendments. His explosion just now rather suggested that he thought that what has taken place arose from the fact that he produced a Bill full of Amendments. But there have been discussions on the Bill before, sometimes lengthy.
Anybody who has examined what purports to be an up-to-date copy of the Army Act will see the number of occasions on which amending Bills have been produced. Now the Secretary of State points a finger at my right hon. Friend (Mr. Strachey) and says, "What did you do about it when you were in office?" I recall that the present Tory Secretary of State for War is not the only Secretary of State for War whom my hon. Friends have kept out of his bed, and from that point of view they have made it fair shares for all.
The right hon. Gentleman will remember some of the discussions on the Army in 1946 when my right hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger), whom we are sorry is not in his place, was Secretary of State for War. Some of my hon. Friends were keen with reforming zeal at that time, and the right hon. Gentlemen may also remember the agitation for the reform of courts-martial, the establishment of the Lewis Committee, the agitation on the Report of the Lewis Committee, and the establishment of the Pilcher Committee. It was a pity that so few of the right hon. Gentleman's friends participated in that agitation to bring about the reform in that respect.
This necessity for a comprehensive reform of the Army Act has been developed over a long period of time, and my hon. Friends and myself are glad to have played a humble part in now having brought it to a climax so that we shall


have the benefit of this Select Committee, and as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) said, we shall be guided by it in the kind of Bill which we will consider instead of the bits and pieces that compose the Army Act of 1881. On this side of the House, we are genuinely sorry that we have not had more co-operation from the back benchers opposite. We wish that there had been more Amendments on the Order Paper from the other side of the House, and that there had been more discussion on this Bill. It is certainly to be hoped that, when the Committee has reported on its work, the reforming zeal will not be left entirely to Members on this side of the House. It is in that hope that I am glad to be able to support the Third Reading of the Bill.

3.2 a.m.

Mr. Wigg: I must confess to deep disappointment with the Secretary of State for War. After giving such great promise earlier this evening he lost his temper. Earlier tonight he was showing signs of having turned over a new leaf, and I was encouraged by his amiableness, his sweetness of temper and his prompt and quick understanding of the problems which we were discussing. Now, once again, I must return to my favourite topic of great Secretaries of State for War, the greatest of whom was Lord Haldane. I ventured to say earlier—

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: This is not in the Bill.

Mr. Wigg: It is very much so. I am afraid that the noble Lord is right off the mark, and I commend him to read of the influence that Lord Haldane had upon this Act. His hand is to be seen all the way through it.
I am quite in order in saying of the Secretary of State for War, as I said earlier, that it was very encouraging to find him walking in the direction of one of his great predecessors. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman has realised that one of the great virtues of a Secretary of State for War, and, indeed, of any Minister of the Crown, is humility, and the great difference between a Minister in office and a right hon. Gentleman in Opposition is that the former has to get legislation through. One of the ways

to do that is to get the help of the Opposition side of the House in his task. If the Secretary of State will remember that—

Mr. Bing: And the Under-Secretary of State.

Mr. Wigg: Yes, and the Under-Secretary of State. If both will always remember that they will have much less trouble than they had on the Home Guard Bill. I have almost forgotten the habit of sleep now for almost a week—

Mr. Speaker: There is nothing about the hon. Gentleman's habits in this Bill.

Mr. Wigg: On the contrary, Sir, although I accept your Ruling, my habits of sleep or no sleep will be reflected in this Bill, because if we had not been so diligent we would never have got the results we have obtained.
The Secretary of State is quite wrong in supposing that there have been no Army Acts since the end of the war. There has been an annual Bill each year, otherwise the Act would not be in operation. We have had parrot cries from hon. Members opposite as to what we have done in the past six years. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler) answered that. The Secretary of State said that they discovered an old cupboard full of rusty contents. But when we discovered the old cupboard we knew what to do with the contents. This is what annoys hon. Members opposite, they had the opportunity a year ago, had they realised what could be done.
This, I am sure, is the first of many occasions when we shall have similar Measures and I hope the results will be beneficial. I am quite sure that the action we have taken since Monday on this Bill will be beneficial to the Army. Although the Secretary of State does not like it, I am sure that the fact that a Select Committee is to be set up and that we are to clear up the Army Act is due to the action taken on these benches.
If we have had co-operation from hon. Members opposite we have taught them to give it us. I quite agree that by this evening the co-operation is much more willing than on Monday and I hope that, in future, the Secretary of State will not only rejoice in having a good Bill but will rejoice that the steps we have taken which will be of great service to the Army


and perhaps, from a personal point of view, appreciate the lessons which can be learned from the experience of the last week. If he will do that the few halting steps taken earlier this evening may act as a spur to the future and he may even aspire to be as great as Haldane himself.

Orders of the Day — HOUSE OF COMMONS (CATERING)

Miss Burton discharged from the Select Committee on the Kitchen and Refreshment Rooms (House of Commons) and Mrs. Jean Mann added.—[Mr. Drewe.]

Orders of the Day — RAILWAY BRANCH LINES (DIESEL CARS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Redmayne.]

3.8 a.m.

Mr. Niall Macpherson: I begin by expressing gratitude to my hon. Friend for being present at this late hour to reply to this debate. If he had listened to the torrent of oratory to which I have listened in the last five hours, I doubt if he would be in such good fettle to listen to me and to reply.
The last time this matter was raised was at about four o'clock on a Friday afternoon and I am now raising it at something like three o'clock on a Friday morning. My reason for raising the matter is the threat overhanging the passenger services on many branch lines in many parts of the country, and particularly in the part of the country I represent, South-West Scotland.
I begin by giving one or two examples. First there is the Dumfries—Locherbie line which links the South-West of Scotland with the capital. Two services are run daily on this line. If one wants to get from Kirkcudbright to Edinburgh, one travels at an average of something like 20 miles an hour over a distance of about 100 miles. Then there is the Dumfries—Stranraer line, over which three services run each way each day. There is the Langholm—Carlisle line, Langholm being a small industrial burgh, practically its sole industry being woollen textiles. It is a centre of hill farming and is served by a branch line which provides four passenger services a day from Carlisle and five to Carlisle.
I feel that the sparseness of the services, coupled with the general decrepitude of the rolling stock, is causing a steady reduction in the numbers of passengers using these lines. In consequence, an entirely new approach to the problem is required. Some of these branch lines have to be kept open for goods services, and sometimes also as emergency loop-ways.
Where expense of maintaining track and manning stations and level crossings has to be incurred in any case, how should the provision of a passenger service be looked at? There is extra cost of providing a passenger service—the train, the higher standard of track maintenance and whatever additional safety measures are required. It seems to me, as a layman, that some of these safety measures are inadequate and badly in need of being brought up to date.
The question then arises of the extra cost of running passenger services, after taking into account the cost of keeping a goods service going. Ought that full extra cost be covered by receipts? What cannot be justified and can never succeed is an inferior service—a grimy shadow of main line services. It will never attract traffic. It is doomed to failure and ultimate demise.
I suggest what is needed is something different. On Friday, 30th November last, the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) suggested that diesel rail cars should be considered. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, replying with customary good humour, said:
in no case where a branch line has been closed down would a diesel rail car have turned a non-profitable service into a profitable one."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th November, 1951; Vol. 494, c. 2000–1.]
I cannot tell what assumptions the Railway Executive made regarding charges to be taken into account in estimating whether a profit could be made or not, or what assumptions they made regarding the extra passenger traffic that would result from changing from steam to oil and all that implies. I am not concerning myself with lines which have been closed. My concern is to urge that unless the defeatist attitude that the railways have shown towards the problem of branch lines in the last 25 years is changed, in a few years they will have to close all their branch lines.
I am glad to say that I have good reason to believe that that attitude is now changing. We are not the only country by any means which has been faced with a growing tendency for the public to change to the use of buses rather than trains. In other countries also, train fares cost more than bus fares. In other countries also buses can put down passengers much nearer their destinations than can the trains.
Yet in other countries it seems clear that railways have succeeded in attracting passengers back from the roads and in resuscitating their branch lines. At a time when our roads are overcrowded, when the accident rate is far too high, is it reasonable that our branch railways, which cost so much to build and have often to be maintained in any case for goods traffic, should be regarded as obsolete?
If the Railway Executive continue to run obsolete trains on them by obsolete methods, it will not be surprising if they see their passenger traffic dwindling away to zero. I am urging a change of outlook. I should say at once that I am not expert in this matter, but I have taken such advice as I can to inform myself, and I am indebted to the Dumfries and Galloway Development Association for much of the information which I have been able to collect.
I believe that the answer may very well he in diesel rail cars. The reasons are that they are cleaner, more comfortable, far superior for tourist purposes—one can see out of the windows as one moves along—they ride far better than existing rolling stock and they are even equipped with modern conveniences. They are also quicker in acceleration and retardation. I know that my hon. Friend said that he was not wholly convinced on this latter point, but there seems to be good evidence in support of it. They are, thus, far better for journeys with frequent stops.
There is a saving in time in refuelling and watering. I believe that the rail cars can run for about 700 miles without either operation being necessary. They are less hard on the track itself, and they are less hard on the rolling stock owing to the smoothness of shunting. They are very much more economical in manpower, fuel and maintenance.
On the question of manpower, there is one driver instead of two. There is a conductor, and on branch lines we may very easily be able to save the whole business of issuing tickets at intermediate stations by using the cars like buses and having a conductor on the train itself.
In fuel, these rail cars are said to be three times as economical, but comparisons here may be vitiated by the growing fiscal discrimination against petrol. However, they save two hours "steaming up," and there are enormous economies in the handling of fuel. In starting a new venture, maintenance is bound to present a problem. When the problem is overcome, maintenance is found to cost less.
Servicing is certainly simpler. In the meantime, it is a question of establishing maintenance centres, a matter on which the Road Haulage Executive, who are accustomed to the maintenance of diesel engines, might be able to help. We certainly want the maximum flexibility in these matters.
I am informed that the standard considerations which one should take into account are availability, and here diesel rail cars can be relied upon for service at any time in much the same way as road vehicles. The next consideration is overall efficiency, and they are said to be far superior to steam. Next we have cost. The initial cost is undoubtedly a good deal higher than the cost of the other form of transport. It varies from about £7,000, I am told, for a rail-bus, to about £18,000 for a 250 horse-power rail car, but that consists of both a motive unit and a carriage.
On the question of the operating costs, both the Belgian State Railways and the Great Northern Railway of Ireland find that diesel cars are about three times cheaper to run than steam. I have some interesting figures about maintenance costs from the Great Northern Railway of Ireland. Last year the maintenance cost for the 20 rail cars which they ran was less than £8,000.
There is one alleged disadvantage, and that is that diesel cars are less flexible than steam trains, which can have carriages added more easily to deal with emergency traffic, such as football matches and market days provide. But against this one can set the big advantage of greater frequency. We shall not


attract custom back to the railway lines until we can get some system which will provide greater frequency.
I am told that the usual practice of the Great Northern Railway of Ireland is to run two rail cars with either a buffet car or one or two carriages between them. Normally a branch line diesel rail car can easily be run alone, but when extra traffic is offered it can be run as a train with four carriages in that way. What is undoubtedly essential is additional frequency.
A very good example is the experiment which was carried out recently in Ireland, where a train was run to a football match between Dundalk and Cork. The total distance covered by the training, including empty running—and all done in 24 hours—was 554 miles. Nearly 300 passengers were carried at an average speed of 45 miles an hour. There was no refuelling during the whole time and the fuel consumed was less than four miles per gallon for each car.
Rail cars have been used on the Great Western Railway for several years. Lord Brabazon said, at the last annual general meeting of Associated Commercial Vehicles, Ltd., that cars supplied by them had run 17 million miles in Britain up to the end of 1951. I would ask my hon. Friend how many of those miles were run in Scotland.
It is not too late to make a change. It means having three or four points in Scotland as centres for branch line rail car operation; say, Glasgow, Perth, Inverness and Aberdeen, and either Dumfries or Carlisle would be suitable centres in the south.
Associated Commercial Vehicles also supply Ireland and Western Australia. I understand another British manufacturer supplies a number of countries, including Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Jamaica and Portuguese West Africa. It seems odd that we cannot purchase a few more for ourselves. By 1950 there were more than 2,000 rail cars in use on the Continent of Europe and another 600 on order. Italy runs more than 700. She also supplies Greece and Egypt.
In France, the substitution of 18 diesel rail cars for seven steam trains resulted on one branch line in a three to fourfold increase in passenger traffic. Germany supplies herself and Turkey.

Hungary supplies herself and the Argentine. As for the United States, I would quote from "Diesel Railway Traction" No. 229 of June, 1951:
On a number of American railways a new lease of life is being given to subsidiary mainline and to branch-line services by means of the new 85 Budd railcars with hydraulic transmissions.
It is estimated that in 1951, 3,500 new diesel units would be delivered to U.S.A. railways, needing 15,500 new drivers, maintenance staff and supervisors.
Passenger traffic can be won back from the roads. It is no answer to say that railways cannot afford to make this experiment. I believe that they cannot afford not to. In any case British Railways have purchased 84 diesel shunters and have decided to buy another 573. I hope the Minister will tell the House what consideration has so far been given to the extended use of diesel rail cars and that he will urge upon the railways a progressive policy of modernisation on branch lines. If my hon. Friend will tell us that he will at least try to persuade the Railway Executive to carry out in Scotland experiments such as have been carried out near here with light cars, I think he will make Scotland very happy.

3.25 a.m.

Mr. W. S. Duthie: I intervene to support the plea made by my hon. Friend for more extensive use of the diesel car, and in particular, I would focus attention on one branch line where such a vehicle would prove most useful. This is a line which has been closed, running between Inveramsay and Macduff, and catering for an important part of the seaboard of Banffshire and part of East Aberdeenshire. The Railway Executive state that it is closed because of loss.
The passenger traffic was not paying. The Railway Executive had been told that the times of trains were totally unsuitable. So far as the passenger traffic is concerned, I believe it could be brought back. The tracks are there, in a reasonably good state of repair, and a frequent service of diesel cars on this stretch would pay handsome returns.
Holidaymakers come here; visitors from the south have come for generations via Aberdeen, and then by this branch line to the seaboard. But now there is only a bus service, and the visi-


tors are not coming because there are not the facilities for handling luggage. Visitors arriving in Aberdeen en route for Macduff or any other town along this branch line must trundle their luggage half way across Aberdeen to the bus stop. People with young families, who would ordinarily take prams with them, must stay away.
The railway is there, and it is a national asset which ought to be used. An experiment ought to be made in the direction which has been suggested by my hon. Friend. So far as this branch line is concerned, I tell the Parliamentary Secretary that it could be made to pay.
I deplore this defeatist attitude on the part of the Railway Executive, which seems to produce, every time, as the only panacea, the closing down of any line which does not pay. If a line is really needed, then it would pay, and here is a branch line which the people want. It is not the line that is at fault; it is the service that was offered. Here is the opportunity for experiment with diesel cars, and I feel certain that there is success awaiting such operation.

3.28 a.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Gurney Braithwaite): I should like to say straight away that I am only too anxious, even at this hour, to give as full a reply as I can to my hon. Friends who have just spoken, and would say that it will be necessary for me to cover again a little of the ground I traversed on 30th November last year with the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl), on a tour of branch lines.
First, there is the situation regarding branch lines in the area so ably described this morning, and, secondly, I will say something about the development of diesel rail cars over the country as a whole. Passenger services will be withdrawn from the Lockerbie-Dumfries branch line as from 19th May this year. There has been ample opportunity for objections to be lodged, and a census was taken of the traffic; but, in this, as in so many other causes, those most vociferous in their protests were those who use this railway the least. The number of passengers carried daily is eighteen per train, or 524 a week.
was closed to freight traffic on 4th July, 1949—nearly three years ago—and a co-ordinating road and rail service introduced. Freight traffic formerly carried on this branch line is now conveyed to and from railheads by the Road Haulage Executive acting as agents for the Railway Executive, with the result that there is now a service provided on five days a week as against three days a week when the railways looked after it.
At Dumfries, there is a railhead for light goods traffic and parcels. Heavy goods traffic is dealt with at Dumfries, Auldgirth, and Thornhill stations. Collection and delivery services, not previously available, are now given, excepting for traffic where distance or inaccessibility of premises are involved. Such traffic is delivered to, and received by, agents in the villages of Dunscore and Moniaive.
Holywood became an unstaffed public siding dealing with horse-box traffic and through-load traffic on 26th September, 1949. More than a year before that decision was taken, the average daily passenger traffic was six, one parcel was forwarded and one parcel received daily, together with an average of about one ton of freight traffic.
Hon. Members, and possibly you, Sir, will be sorry to learn that, despite the romantic attraction connected with it, Gretna station is closed. Of course, one used to proceed there, I think, by road for romantic purposes, but Gretna station was closed, despite its attraction. A census showed an average of six passengers using the station daily, with an average of one-and-a-half tons of freight.
There is little doubt that passengers are now road conscious. This is something of which the House is likely to hear more as the Session progresses. The buses, after all, go right into the middle of the villages and drop passengers at the post office, local inn, or wherever it may be. The railways have been realistic in this matter. Hence, the closing of branch lines. Here, I repeat something that I have said before. These branch lines would never have been laid down at all had the railways been constructed in the motor age instead of in the age of horses.
On this side of the House, those who hold the political views we do—hon.


Gentlemen opposite appear to be exhausted with their oratory on the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill—have had many a tussle with the Opposition on the subject of the economic running of nationalised railways. My hon. Friend must not complain of a policy which will, in 1952, result in a saving for British Railways of about £800,000. We live in an age of big figures and we talk in millions, but £800,000 is, after all, £800,000.
With regard to the extended use of diesel rail cars, the British Transport Commission informed me, and I have obtained this information since my hon. Friend gave notice he would raise this matter, that where branch lines have been closed in Scotland, it is considered that the use of diesel rail cars would not have affected the economic position sufficiently to justify the retention of the services.
With regard to exporting diesel rail cars, it is true that manufacturers are fully engaged with orders for export. In fact, however, British Railways have not yet sought to place orders for diesel cars. The reason was given in a debate we had a fortnight ago on Friday about the organisation of distribution and the later debate on the dismissal of certain railway workers. But, since the war, British Railways have necessarily had to concentrate their resources, which are severely limited by the capital investment programme, upon trucks and wagons, and in restoring the equipment and running facilities neglected during the period of hostilities. In addition, available technical staff has been fully employed on schemes of electrification between Liverpool Street and Shenfield and Manchester and Sheffield.
The railways are fully alive to the fact that there is scope for diesels in replacing lightly loaded steam services. In consequence rail car development is being pressed forward energetically. During this year a special committee, consisting of senior regional officers, together with specialists from headquarters, was formed to investigate the whole problem. The results of their investigations and their recommendations are now being given full consideration by the Executive. The findings of this committee will be made known to the British Transport Commission, with a recommendation

from the Railway Executive in regard to expenditure.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Will the findings of this committee, after being reported to the Transport Commission, be made known to the House?

Mr. Braithwaite: In the first instance they will go to the British Transport Commission, and I should like to investigate the possibility of presenting them to the House, because this information would be of value to hon. Members.
The Railway Executive inform me that the question of using rail cars has been studied for many years and there is nothing that is not known about their design, equipment, operation and maintenance. Full information is available of the experience on the Continent and overseas by constant contact between railway officers of the various undertakings throughout the world.
In Britain the former Great Western Company initiated a small fleet of diesel rail cars between the wars. Many of these were in operation over quite long distances. I have no doubt that investigation will be steadily pursued with a view to expanding these services as the financial position makes this possible.
I am sure the House will agree with me that my hon. Friend has raised a matter of great interest and importance, and I have no doubt his remarks will be carefully studied by those responsible. Coming back, however, to his original point, regarding branch lines, I would conclude by saying that while diesel operation might have been cheaper, the saving would not have been sufficient to counteract the other services in maintaining these branch lines.

Mr. N. Macpherson: I hope my hon. Friend will forgive me for one second, but I made it quite clear that I was not concerned with the lines that had been closed but rather with ensuring that other branch lines will not be closed in the future.

Mr. Braithwaite: Exactly the same factors operate, and my hon. Friend, by putting his intervention, which I do not resent, has prevented me from making the most important part of my remarks


because the time of the Adjournment has now finished.

Brigadier R. Medlicott: It has been suggested that the railway engine drivers, who have been accustomed for a lifetime to driving heavy engines pulling heavy loads, have a reluctance to transfer to these single vehicles. Has my hon. Friend regarded that as a limiting factor, and if so, could the matter be looked into?

Mr. Braithwaite: I do not think it is, and certainly it has not been brought to my notice.

Sir Wavell Wakefield (St. Maylebone): In connection with the point made about attracting passengers to the trains, the evidence available on the Continent is that people have been attracted by the introduction of diesel cars because of the attractive and easy travelling—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'Clock on Thursday evening, and the Debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Twenty-two Minutes to Four o'Clock a.m.